Hello. I've rewritten this because the original version didn't make much
sense to my readers. Actually, it didn't make too much sense to me either.
^_^ It aluded too much and left too many questions. I hope this one does
better now that I actually have a plot. I'll have Chp 3 and rewrite Chp 2
out a little after Easter. Plese send me C&C.
---Khyron the Backstabber
ANTISOCIAL PRESS PRESENTS
EVIL IN THE EYE I: RETURN TO DARK SKIES
(THE TRUE STORY OF THE DEATH BUSTERS)
CHAPTER AF: STONE TO FLESH
BY KHYRON THE BACKSTABBER
They bruised my soul with a proverb,
They bruised my back with a rod,
And they bade me bow to my elders,
For that was the word of God.
They pent up my soul and bound me
Till life was a living death,
They struck the wine from my fingers,
The passion from my breath.
I reached my hands to living,
They hurled me back into school,
And they said, "Go learn your lessons,
"You innocent young fool."
They yowled till they woke the trumpets--
And the sword blade rent the plough,
And they said, "It is your duty
"To die for your elders now."
They cowered far from the battle
As I went into the strife,
And I spilled my guts in the trenches
In the red dawn of my life.
And the elders named me hero,
But more than their words and ire
Was the scent of a strange wild flower
There where I died in the mire.
**********
TOMORROW
On a night far into the future, the stars seemed to flee in horror and
hide themselves in the heaven�s dark mists. The Moon too was hiding as if
recoiled in the memory of what happened so many years ago and then again so
many years later. This storm was unnatural for it seemed to swirl with a
strange power, as if heralding something that had no reason to exist.
Crystal Tokyo�s weather control towers for the first time since their
inception, had no way of predicting this. It was as if there was nothing
there. There was thunder; there was no rain; just a chilling wind that
seemed to rise from nowhere. For a bit, there was no lightning... Then
without warning, in that cloak of darkness the shadows parted and a lance
of sick fire struck the ground not twenty kilometres east of the City. The
magical barriers that protected it from war, natural disasters, and
invasion wavered and buckled like plastic left under the sun for too long.
The shockwave that followed came as a slow concave scream from the earth
beneath. Several buildings shattered away from their moorings and great
chasms appeared in the ground.
To the North of the city stood a great tower in silver and sapphire
wherein paced a solitary figure, a young woman resplendent in azure glory.
�Once, from dark skies the Visitor came, seeking the Silence,� whispered
the Lady Mercury, more to reassure herself than to remember, �And now he
comes again.� In her arms was clutched a weighty tome, bound in reptilian
hide. This was the Book of Skelos.
The Codex she held was a set of mismatched journals and scraps of
metamagical philosophies written in different times and by different hands.
There were maps of great cities that now were dust, even in legends of the
Ancient Ones. Bound together, these tatters became the only known records
of the fall of the Silver Millennium. How these scraps survived the wear of
time, even she could not tell, but the veracity of these notes could not be
doubted. Even with the bastardised myths, musings, and mad ramblings; even
with the deliberate lies it told, the first book in the Codex was a journal
that the Lady Mercury herself had written in her first incarnation.
The Codex held the missing parts of a puzzle that Neo-Queen Serenity
never knew existed; ordinary abominations in everyday life; things that
could not have been and yet were. This was the truth behind that lost war.
It told of the arrival of Metallia on Earth, the possession of Beryl, and
the corruption of then-Prince Endymion�s Guards. This was history known.
But every history delivers up its own questions. How did Metallia come to
notice the Kingdom and its inhabitants from her prison in deep space? Who
chose Beryl as its Avatar? Who commanded the armies that wiped out the
civilizations of this galaxy? These questions were never regarded as
anything more than gloss, even with the other Senshi. But these were
questions the Lady Mercury began to ask as soon as she discovered the tome
in the ruins of an island temple in the Aegean.
It was a maddening puzzle, for heresies abounded within. There was a
thesis written in a steady hand that proclaimed the grievances of the
Peoples of the Earth against Queen Serenity�s Court. That the absolute love
the Queen had for her people apparently had not been reciprocated was
absurd, but here it was. There was no malice in those words, no harangues
of hate or false discord. Only a sense of sorrow the author must have felt
at what they saw as great betrayals by the Court.
The other heresies were not as pleasant... here was a letter corrupted
by time, that told of a young Endymion�s love for a country noblewoman
named Beryl of Atlantis... there was an account of the existence of strange
and forgotten gods from a time inconceivable even in myths of the Silver
Millennium.
Madness.
There were mad ramblings about the slow starvation that greeted the
survivors of the Cataclysm. There were battle plans, all by the same hand,
that incorporated alien strategies with known tactics of war. And across
all the accounts were whispers of a dark figure who heralded the end of
time.
�We did not see them as truths for these came not from Our eyes,� the
Lady Mercury thought sadly, �And if these writings are true, then
everything we�ve ever believed in not only becomes a lie, but heralds
disaster.�
Her Silver Tower was the receptacle of the knowledge of the world. It
was here she had, for thirty long years, wrestled with the insanities of
the Book of Skelos. Hidden within the myths and heresies was a timetable; a
list of signs that had heralded the arrival of �the Visitor.� For the last
thirty years, she had worked alone, forsaking her presence at Neo-Queen
Serenity�s Court for the sake of unravelling a mystery she did not fully
understand, but feared she would soon. Her friends probably thought her mad
now, Lady Mercury thought.
It was only with her diligence that she was able to spot and predict all
the prophecies and signs that came to pass. History was the wheel of time.
It plodded forward, but in the end, repeated itself. Tonight, would be the
night she had been praying, would never come to pass. Pluto, Mars, &
Mercury in the constellation of Scorpio... the one night where the walls
between realities would come crashing to the ground.
�It doesn�t matter now,� the Lady Mercury said, watching the inferno to
the south being heroically tackled by the City�s Royal Guard. What she read
frightened her. Evil had stalked the Silver Millennium and brought it to
ruin. The evil came not from without... but from within.
�I must see the Queen before it starts all over again,� she said and
vanished, leaving the Tower to its solitude once more.
**********
YESTERDAY
War Journal Entry 6901-01
I hear voices in my head. <PAUSE> Many voices, but one owner.
Unfortunately it�s not me. I know I�m not crazy because I know they�re
there. She tells me things. I know I have no way of knowing, but I�m sure
it�s a �She.� <PAUSE> There is something definitely female about the
presence that has been my companion for so long. And I know she�s not very
nice.
I know I�m not just talking to myself because she tells me things.
Little things about this and that. Sometimes... <PAUSE> I�m scared of the
answers since I tend to notice little smatterings of the nature of reality
I sure as hell know I should have no business knowing. I know I�m talking
to someone because even though I may be smart, I know things now. Little
secrets and such and such. <PAUSE> And they�re very, very, real. And god
knows I didn�t just pull all this outta my ass.
I know she treats me nice because she�s never ever left me. For every
pain and every loss <PAUSE> and every victory and every glass of beer.
She�s been there, watching and waiting. <PAUSE> For what, I don�t know.
It�s lonely all by myself. Always saying goodbye and always moving forward.
But I do show my appreciation for her companionship by doing what she wants
of me. She doesn�t ask very often and she never asks for more than what I�m
capable of. So I do what she says. But we both know she doesn�t own me. I
think she�s scared of me.
Maybe she�s really just a part of me who went somewhere and got smart
before coming back home. Maybe she�s a goddess or a thought weighing down
in my mind.
Maybe I�ll give her a name. She wants it to be something special.
I�ll name her after my favourite band. It�ll be a tribute to the guys.
James, Lars, Kirk, and Cliff. God I miss ya man! This beer�s for you!
<GLUG! GLUG! GLUG!>
I�ll name my friend �Metallia�
<END TAPE>
**********
TODAY
The visitor arrived early that morning in Tokyo aboard the
JR/Chuo-Line-Rapid. The entire trip had taken him almost four hours from
Osaka. Before that it was a sixteen-hour flight from Lima in Peru. He was
rather fortunate this time that the Japanese Ministry of Immigration didn�t
catch him sneaking out of Japan the back way; through the American military
forces in Okinawa.
*God bless America, * he thought. *Land of the free and home of worst
internal security. *
Stowing away with a detachment of US army brats heading for Guam for a
Greco-Roman Wrestling tournament had been a stroke of genius. It had cost
him only several bottles of Absolut vodka, twenty Urabon-type AV VCD�s, and
the latest Depot art book by Shirow Masamune to get the team�s captain to
pad the list of travellers. And you didn�t need a passport...
From Guam, the visitor signed out with a Portuguese merchant marine ship
delivering phone lines to Peru. The purpose of this little odyssey was to
establish a proper set of identification papers for his trip to Japan.
Despite what you read in the FFML, reality spanning is NOT fun. You just
don�t pop out of nowhere, romp around in your own personal fantasyland and
expect the mundane things to gloss over. That just does not happen. No
matter where you come from, you always arrive in each new world as a
non-entity and that makes local governments very edgy. In order to make
large purchases or acquire a driving licence or even rent a room anywhere
you need to produce proof that you are who you say you are. Otherwise, it�s
the boot. Seven months in a National Police Agency jail for illegal entry
and a hasty deportation to whatever country they think you�re from.
It rankled the visitor no end that there were several (hundred?)
Japanese Republics out there in alternate realities who pegged him for a
Vietnamese refugee. Oh well, there was one time he got deported to Djibouti
in East Africa... which was very stupid.
There are numerous was to cut across government regulations and secure
to yourself a new identity... IF you are a Caucasian. In Great Britain and
the Commonwealth, a letter written to oneself is enough proof of identity.
For the rest of Europe, identity papers are all strictly monitored. The
United States of America is a haven for people either seeking privacy or
escaping from oneself. With a Greater Nation composed of fifty smaller
ones, it is easy to become someone else by simply crossing state lines.
By rule of thumb, its extremely easy for a Westerner to wander about the
Asian continent freely and for an Asian to travel the Western hemisphere
without reproach. The opposite should be true then, that Westerners in
other Western countries or Asians in other Asian countries have the same
inverse luck in acquiring new identity. Sadly this isn�t true.
In the West, Caucasians have, over the centuries, periodically set out
from their homes to wander about and colonize foreign lands and interbreed
with local populaces so that from one end of the European continent to the
other, Slavs can get away claiming to be Britons and Gaelics my get away
claiming to be Poles.
For the average person of Asiatic descent, there are extremely limited
options for him unlike his counterpart from the West. Asians have over the
centuries adopted a more or less �stay-at-home� policy. Historically, we�ve
picked out our own little turfs then proceed to keep a wary eye on the
neighbours doing the same. This is why every 40 kilometres or so, you have
a new nation with its languages and half a hundred sub-dialects and
distinct physical ethnic features and traditions. Add that to a natural
xenophobia and less-than-democratic governing policies, it is a wonder that
tourism ever flourished in this part of the world.
The visitor was lucky then to have a Eurasian ancestry that allowed him
to blend in with the diverse races across Asia and the Pacific Rim. With
his softened features and submerged character, he was the stereotypical
prototype of the Asian Heritage. With little more than a change of
hairstyle or manner of dress he could pass equally well for Korean student
as for a Chilean Indian herdsman. His was a face one could not pick out in
an empty room. Being hounded down almost ceaselessly by authorities and
underworld figures across countless realities had honed his chameleon-like
skills to an almost razor-edged proficiency. And for the millionth time,
the visitor cursed his fate, wondering how on Earth these skills would
someday land him his dream job writing X-Men comic books...
The Third World countries that either dotted or ringed the Pacific Sea
were perfect places for an Asian to acquire a new life in any reality.
Reliant more on paperwork and massive bloated bureaucracies than any
efficient computer system, it becomes almost a textbook chapter on
corruption when one wants to pimp the local authorities to suit ones needs.
Two weeks and twenty identities later, a young man stepped off a Lufthansa
airline at the Osaka International and boarded the JR/Shinkansen-Nozomi to
Tokyo. He had spent an absurd amount of dollars to a number of bureaucrats
and forgers across South America for efficiency and expedience in handling
his requests. He had also left an indeterminate number of spent 9x19mm
casings across floors of that continent to assure his privacy when his
requests had been completed.
The JR/Chuo-Line-Rapid was quickly coming to a halt. The Chief Purser
whom he was buying onigiri from, was already telling him to fasten his
seat-belt.
With a drab olive duffel bag over his right shoulder, Khyron Tang of
2-601 Hino 3-Chome Daito-shi Osaka 547, Japan left the station and began to
walk towards his target objective: Komatsu Limited, a defence contractor
for the Japan Defence Agency. They had just unveiled a new armoured 6x6
reconnaissance and patrol vehicle called the �Type 87.� It carried a crew
of five and was armed with a 25mm cannon and 7.62x51mm coaxial gun. The
armour on the vehicle was classified, but he suspected a new aluminium
variant. Now the question was, how much punishment could it take before the
armour went boom?
�Hmmm. Komatsu Limited,� Khyron mused as he ran down an NTT phonebook.
�Looks like I�m going to Juuban in Minato-ku.�
Maybe someone should have told him about all the monsters he would
meet...
**********
TODAY
Hikawa Jinja was a Shinto shrine in Minato-ku, the Tokyo ward that
housed the Japanese Government Houses. It was several miles Northwest of
Tokyo bay, but straddled an imaginary line between Tokyo International
Airport and Tokyo Disneyland. The shrine was one of the newer additions to
the land�s spiritual blanket, built just after the Meiji Restoration in
1873. It was partially destroyed during the Greater East-Asia War of
1941-1945 and rebuilt during the American Occupation. These days the shrine
was tended by an elderly priest whose mind seemed to wander to
less-than-spiritual directions. His granddaughter, a young girl of
fourteen, and a drifter who had wandered in seeking purpose in life;
completed the odd family.
This morning was rather hurried for Hino Rei. Last night�s battle
against the forces of Queen Beryl had been the latest in this running war
for the survival of the city. The last few weeks had left her with few
hours of sleep and less time for her schoolwork and chores. It was times
like these that Rei appreciated the presence of that lovesick baka.
Yuuichirou may have his faults, but at least he worked hard to maintain the
shrine. Without him, Grandpa Hino and his granddaughter would have been a
lot more frazzled that morning.
�Rei, I�m very lenient with you when it comes to going out with your
friends,� Grandpa Hino began. �But lately you�ve been leaving off your
chores as a miko and it�s quite plain to see that you haven�t been getting
much sleep. If this goes on, I might have to ground you until you learn to
get your priorities straight.�
Grandpa Hino was a kindly old man who seemed to know a lot more than he
let on. A bit of a lecher at times, but that never stopped him from
performing his duties as herald of the kami and as spiritual adviser to the
community of Juuban. His eccentricities made him seem more human and less
remote to those who came seeking advice or healing. Hikawa Jinja was his
life and it wasn�t a very bad one at that. Now if he could only set up Rei
with a nice young man, he could be assured that Hikawa Jinja would be cared
for, for another generation.
But lately, Rei seemed to be more distant to her responsibilities here.
True, she did her best, but it all seemed to be �catch up.� The floors had
not received a thorough polishing in a while and the hedges and leaves were
not always cleared. Yuuichirou already had his hands full repairing the
roof after that dreadful thunderstorm a few weeks ago and he was doing his
best to keep the shrine�s inventories up. Now, breakfast seemed to be a
little burned around the edges.
�Gomen nasai, Grandfather... Yuuichirou-san...� Rei began contrite and
embarrassed. �I�ve been having a lot of extra schoolwork and exams lately
and my friends have been trying to help me catch up.� She hated lying, but
then the truth was even more unbelievable. �I know I haven�t been doing my
chores very well but I don�t want to fall behind in school either.�
Kumada Yuuichirou was a young man in early twenties. Born heir to the
fortunes of Kumada Group Industries, he lacked nothing materially, but at
times he felt that all this wealth meant nothing. His parents were abroad
most of the time and his house felt so empty. Seeking to fill this void
inside him, Yuuichirou hit the streets as a vagabond. It had come as a
shock to find out how differently other people lived, but he now had a
freedom he never had before. His quest had let him to one day pass outside
this small and ordinary shrine... It was here he found the most beautiful
girl in the world sweeping the steps to the temple proper. It had taken him
awhile to screw up his courage to approach her, but somewhere along the
way, he found himself drafted as an acolyte to her grandfather. Oh well, at
least he got his foot in the door...
Looking at the embarrassed girl across the dining table, Yuuichirou felt
a pang of pity for her. He remembered how much of a hassle it was in the
Japanese high school system. �Don�t worry about it Rei-san. I�ll see if I
can take over your chores for you. Just concentrate in your studies.�
Grandpa Hino was embarrassed at his own rebuke. He never liked to
lecture pretty young girls. �Oh Rei, I�m sorry. But you should have said
something earlier. Don�t worry, we�ll try to work something out.� For all
his bluster, Grandpa Hino was very lenient with his only granddaughter.
Yuuichirou nodded with a mouthful of rice. �Maybe one of us should get
someone to help out around here, at least until your examinations are over.�
Rei would have answered but the small clock in the corner began to chime
07.30H. �Oh no! I better get out of here otherwise I�m going to be late!�
The war with the Dark Kingdom may have been wearing her down, but it would
take a lot more for Hino Rei to end up late like Usagi...
With that, she sprinted out of the shrine leaving the two men to finish
off breakfast.
**********
TODAY
The shadows in the house seemed to smile, dark and wild. The light that
peeked from behind the heavy draperies run shut, glinted off the figure�s
spectacles and seemed to give him an unnatural grin that stretched across
his face. One would think that with little effort, he could swallow himself
whole.
He was Professor Tomoe Souichi. At least that�s who he was on better
days. These days, there was something yowling and screaming inside him
begging for release... and it wasn�t very pretty.
The daimon that gnawed at him from the inside slowly eating at his being
had a name. Germatos. Germatos the Faceless. Germatos the White. Germatos,
Herald-of-the-Silence-Yet-to-Come.
It was less than forty-nine hours since Germatos� lungs had sucked in
the putrid air of this disgusting planet. It was a planet that was filled
with breathing, drooling, living things so caught up in their own
superiority that they brought unto themselves untold miseries. These
injustices would have to be cured through the mercy of the
Silence-Yet-to-Come.
His shell had been a father, a scientist and a headmaster of some nearby
place of learning. His shell had made the mistake of allowing his tasks to
interfere with the instinct to care for his offspring and the child had
paid the price for it. An explosion in this very laboratory had cost him
his daughter�s life. His cries of anguish were so filled with loss,
self-hate, and madness beyond sanity�s threshold that they drew the
attentions of the alien intelligences that lurked between the borders of
time and space.
He begged.
They listened. They offered.
He accepted.
A life for a life. That was the agreement. They could, after a fashion,
bring his child back, but in return, he would have to forfeit his.
Professor Tomoe Souichi didn�t hesitate. And now Germatos walked the earth.
But in order to open a doorway for his Master, Germatos needed a native
to invite the Silence in of his own free will. But then, Germatos was
patient. He would wait a millennia if necessary.
**********
TODAY
The park was lively that Saturday morning. Over there was a young family
of three out on a picnic. And along the path, a group of girls in uniform
and ridiculously oversized socks giggled to themselves as they hurried off
to school. A young boy was tossing a Frisbee to his eager Labrador. And
everywhere happy couples strolled about, hands clasped with affection.
All this was observed by the young man who sat lion a bench. Khyron had
just reached the park a little after dawn and appropriated this vantage
point over the park as his own. Though only sixteen, he felt old and tired
and sad, as he watched life swirl around him. People laughing, smiling, and
content even if only for the moment. He brushed back a strand of hair that
was dangling across his face and felt a solitary tear run down his check
and splatter on his knees.
His little jaunt through South America had started out like a great
adventure. Jumping borders and shooting rebel militias in the jungles was
supposed to have been the ultimate experience for training. Go in, find
some schmuck who died unconfirmed in one of the numerous little skirmishes
that dotted that particular continent, take his identity, and stock up
supplies for the war in Japan. But somewhere along the line, the events
just seemed to blur. The next kill was just as mechanical as the kill
before as was the kill before that. He had eaten his way through jungles
before, but this time, everything seemed to taste like ashes and at times
he could feel the stares of stone gods, forgotten by time, lost and
swallowed by the humid foliage that stretched for miles around.
This was what he wanted, wasn�t it?
Khyron�s thoughts were in turmoil at the mess that was his life. Or was
it a life? No name. No friends. No babe. No car. Well, okay, he didn�t know
how to drive... but he still wanted a car. His trip back to Tokyo gave him
ample opportunity for introspection and somewhere past the rail-line, his
final downward spiral ran.
He had reached the munitions plant early and was beginning a stake out
when he noticed a group of cute girls just out of school pass by. There was
a gangly blond with her hair done up in an odd double ponytail. She was
with another blond chattering animatedly with a tall brown-haired girl from
another school by the look of her uniform. Khyron was too far away to hear
what they were talking about, but their expressions were so full of life
that he just felt compelled to watch. Between these three was a fourth girl
who seemed to act as referee to the group. Khyron wondered how she�d look
if she smiled...
Khyron didn�t know how long he had been standing there watching, but
when he had come out of his reverie, the girls were gone. And for he first
time since he had gotten back, Khyron looked around him and his universe
exploded. What had started as a closed little world involving him and a
munitions factory had now expanded to encompass the whole street. There
were cars and shops that appeared out of nowhere. The sounds and smells of
the area finally reached him and boosted the experience even further.
Then he noticed the people.
There they were in their twos and threes walking with purpose and
contentment. A businessman was speaking on his cell phone to his boss. A
housewife was wondering to her friends whether or not she needed a new
fabric softener. Children skipped happily on their way home from school. A
deliveryman rode by weaving and ducking while balancing a bowl of noodles
in one hand as he turned the corner. Where did everyone come from?
His control over his emotions started to slip as he realised he was
seeing Japan for the first time. These weren�t just backdrops for war to
perform in. These were people around him. People with lives and hopes and
dreams and possibly a few naughty secrets here and there... but that was
beside the point. When did he ever start to see them as nameless and
faceless fodder for the war machine?
And he began to sob uncontrollably as realised what he had been missing
for so long. He brushed at his tears angrily and tried to force the
horrible feelings back down but failed..
*I can�t go through this anymore. The waiting, the fighting, the jumping.
Having no friends, no life, no home.*
Home.
The thought swirled about his being and like a banshee on the haunt, and
a fresh wave of tears threatened to break out.
*I�m just deluding myself. I�m never gonna find home. I�ve wandered for
so long, I don�t remember my name anymore. But what can I do? All these
voices in my head tell me to give up and start over, and who am I to say
that they�re wrong? I wanna have friends, a place to live, a school to go
to. I want the house, the car, the size six girlfriend, and the brass ring.
Is that so wrong?�
Khyron looked up and slowly wiped his glasses and his eyes. His gaze
lingered across a happy young couple sharing a hotdog and his mind
superimposed his form over the young man. Khyron liked what he saw, a
vision of himself happy to be with someone who wanted to be with him too.
�I don�t ever want to be alone again...� he said. The tone of his voice
filled with conviction and a promise to himself. �I claim this... place...
as my home. No more running. I will live and die here. I will play by their
rules and I will be happy.�
Khyron picked up his duffel bag and walked out of the park with more
purpose and conviction than he ever had in the last thousand realities....
�and walked smack into a tall bespectacled man with distinguished white
hair and a too-clean lab coat. Both of them went down on their behinds with
an audible thump.
�Shimatta! Why don�t you fucking look where you�re going, assh--*�
Khyron paused in mid-curse and stared unbelieving at the older man he
just knocked down. The form under his gaze wavered and rippled like ripples
in a still pond and Khyron found himself looking at something definitely
not human. Across his many ravels, Khyron soon developed the ability to see
into a person and read his or her soul. The form in front of him may have
been human, but this one�s aura was unmistakable and unique... Khyron saw
world after world after world put to the torch. Countless billions of
helpless souls perished in terrifying cataclysms by this man�s hands.
Khyron knew this man and had come across him in his wanderings across
reality. And by the look of shock on the man�s expression, Khyron knew that
he too had been recognised.
The stares of disbelief by both parties lasted for a half-heartbeat more
when Khyron broke the silence.
�Holy shit! Germatos! Buddy! Pal! Guy-Who-Still-Owes-Me-Money! What the
hell are you doing here?�
The thing that was Professor Tomoe Souichi just gasped in shock.
**********
COMING SOON IN FUTURE CHAPTERS:
The true nature of Pharaoh 90! Germatos� bargain with the Visitor for the
fate of the world! Grandpa Hino puts out a Want-Ad in the newspaper!
Professor Tomoe gets laid! Michiru Kaiao gets a new classmate! Crystal
Tokyo bites the dust!
-----------------------------------
"So Doc, can you do something? I can't get Shinji to stop fucking Asuka
every five minutes."
--- Owner of two large cats, overheard in local veterinary.
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