[Secret Santa] ADVENT REY (COMPLETE)

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Invictus
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[Secret Santa] ADVENT REY (COMPLETE)

Post by Invictus »

Let's get this thang on the road.

And by "this thang" I mean the story I'm writing as Kamin/Czernobog's Secret Santa present, which I totally haven't been hacking at for months already before the draft.

And believe me, "hack" is the right word.

And apologies to Kamin/Czernobog because "ADVENT REY" isn't actually the name of the story; the real name is too long to fit into the subject field.

And finally without further ado:


Si Rey Quirino Laban sa Masamang Puso ng Pilipinas
(Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines)

or

PINOYMAGEDDON???

Written by Invictus, Approved by Shroom
A Comix! Tale



Cebu Island, The Philippines

It was an evil day.

Yes, it was an evil day, Darkness mused. His human form was astride five hundred pounds of shaking, roaring Stygian nightmarepower, tearing through the meagre roads of this country with pathetic ease. His target was out there, a guttural pulse upon his demonic senses like a tantalizingly loud, yet frustratingly grainy, heartbeat.

A product of these lands, he reflected amidst the noise and the backward stares of the occasional mud-splattered pedestrian. Hot and filthy and without grace or sophistication. Fully deserving of the fate he was about the inflict upon them. At least, they shall have the privilege of bearing witness to his final ascension.

To his sides rode his two compatriots. They were simple men with direct names, suitable enough for the work he had for them. Sweating and complaining as humans did in their mortal squalor, not comprehending the high honour he had placed upon them.

Not like Darkness. His human form knew neither heat nor discomfort, and he hurtled towards his own fate with perfect certainty of its reward.

"What's the hurry, boss-person?" Chaos shouted over the headset, vaguely aware of the sensitivities one must respect of employers who are also shadowy optiono-sexual demon-things.

The metahuman mercenary heard the answering hiss as though it was from a cobra beside his own ear.

"I mean, these are great motorcycles. Very dope. Very dark. Which is making a real comeback these days. Dark, I mean. Not dope." He shot the other escorting rider a nervous glance. "Right, brodysseus?"

"My friend is right, you know." The metahuman mercenary known as Edge said conversationally. "Heroin is only popular with old white exec-" he stopped, twitched, then sat a bit straighter. "I mean yes, grimdark is pretty in this year and PMC Monthly says so. Um."

There was no response from their mutual employer for a short moment, but eventually Darkness' voice crept, like gently bubbling lava, over the coms. "I am glad you find the transportation I provide adequate. They were torn from the bone-bosoms of squamous behemoths that have never seen sunlight, hammered into shape by the tormented shades of sword-smiths whose creations in life have slain no less than a hundred men. Their wickedness – and I do mean both in the literal and colloquial sense – are beyond your puny mortal imaginings, mortal."

Chaos wriggled uncomfortably in the seat of his baroque ride. "That explains the...leather."

"It is not leather."

Further revelations on Stygian craftsmanship were averted as Darkness drove a man with three cages of chickens lashed to his bicycle off the road with the usual pathetic ease, and his two companions had to dodge the flurry of squawking white bodies.

"But," Darkness said, "I do feel that your concerns lay elsewhere. And it would be amiss of me as heir apparent of this benighted planet not to tend to the concerns of my frailer conspirators. Yes." Chaos saw him glance back, dark hair tossing behind his unhelmeted head, and swore to himself that he saw one of his eyes flash in a self-congratulatory way. My plans I will share with you! How thankful you must be.

The upside to working for someone who you don't think should need your help at all, Chaos thought, is that you're not expected to do much. The downside, of course, is you're not really needed.

They had been given barely a brief on their mission and a huge advance right at the bar. They had flown overnight to the Philippines where three of the blackest, nastiest bikes he had ever seen had rolled out of a shipping container, waiting for them. It was easy to remember why they had thought the job would be worth it.

But as they tore across the sodden country, scattering natives and derailing traffic in glorious triple formation, it gradually occurred to Chaos that his brimstone-belching ride, the masterpiece of macho with more aggressive curves than a waterslide and more self-adjusting protrusions than a clown car, might not be the best choice for going down the roads of a country which did not technically seem to have roads. Sure, the suspension was holding up wonderfully, probably lubricated with grease squeezed from baby penguins or whatever, but the fancy ground sensors couldn't account for the mud, the onboard map couldn't tell the SatNav where it was, and all the hell-ectronics seemed to be on the fritz anyway in the choking moisture.

Darkness pulled to a stop on a promontory that offered a reasonable view of the still-distant Cebu City, and Chaos and Edge obligingly pulled in alongside him.

"Hell." Chaos tried to shake off the mud splattered over his designer tracksuit while vainly combing out the insects caught in his spiked hair. "No disrespect meant, boss-person, but this isn't bike country."

"It could be worse." Edge murmured, glancing disdainfully at the sweat stains on his suit. "A typhoon passed through this region the day before we arrived."

"Nice one, brophocles." You could at least rely on Edge to do all sorts of unnecessary research for each job, though.

"The sooner you two cease your pathetic pratter, the sooner you shall find purpose in my final ascension!" Darkness thundered. He seemed to have grown a foot taller after he got off his bike, what could only be muscles rippling visibly and unnaturally under his leather overcoat like hungry pythons.

"Oh. Yeah, we're listening."

"I ventured out ere the crack of dawn and scattered the bones of orphans." Darkness hissed. "The patterns in which they fell were pleasing to me."

And the rest of us just try to find breakfast, Chaos thought.

"...for they have revealed to me untold truths." Darkness continued sibilantly. "Truths which would scour the eyes of your kind, mortal. But truths which I alone can read."

Chaos waited. To his flank, Edge lit an absinthe cigarette. They could wait his rants out. They still had no idea what they were getting into.

"...By the casting of bones I temporarily defy the laws of this wretched world, and by my departure I re-center myself to recognize my own desires. This land is my promised land. It is the one I must ride and harrow. You, Chaos, have asked a very good question about the mode of our transportation, regardless of whether you intended to or not. It is a necessary part of what you mortals would call a ritual. A ritual! Such a paltry name for the dark patterns of truth humans cannot embrace with their reason..."

Discreetly, Chaos rang Edge with his headset. "Psst. Hey, brossarian? What're we gonna have for lunch?" Edge stayed silent however, and Chaos guessed he must have zonked out again. Mighty smart of him.

"...And suffering is essential. Yes! This land wallows in iniquity and injustice. Crude by my standards, of course, but it does have a burning stigmata. A locus, yes. I feel it. It thrums with familiar contempt as it aligns with my devil-nature. Simply by stepping upon this land, I have set the inevitable into motion. However, I-we must locate this locus. It is necessary for my final ascension, yes!" Darkness stopped talking with visible effort. "And you two shall be suitably rewarded in the aftermath, of course."

"That sounds...dope." Chaos said professionally. "I'm still not clear on what you hired us for, though."

Darkness sneered. "While I go forth to seek out the locus – it being visible only to my superior mystic senses – I will need you to destroy a man." He caught Chaos' confused expression. "In the purely physical sense."

"Ah, you want us to kill a guy! We're pretty good at that, killing people. Core competency and all that. Right, brosiris?"

Eyes still glazed, Edge muttered some general acknowledgement.

Darkness continued heedlessly, "He is also part of the pattern. The living obstacle, the designated sacrifice. The blood and bone of this stinking land scream his name. We must find him, and stymie him first. Nothing shall stand between my reunion!"

"We kind of need that name here." Chaos offered. "Can't go around killing people without knowing their names, y'dig?"

"Fortunately for you, I cannot gainsay your quaint human taboos regarding bloodshed." Darkness tossed a wad of newspaper at Chaos.

He uncrumpled it and saw the grinning face in the picture, the biggest thing on the front page by far. "Oh boy."


Cebu City

Rey Quirino was stuffing himself with his fourth Inquisitiorized Bacon Brimstone Burger (Judged Guilty...of Deliciousness!TM) at his third VaticanBurger branch of the day when the aide came up to him.

"Rey?" The aide, whose name was Kristian or something, interjected the munching, crunching, spittle-bound display with unmanly timorousness. "Someone wants to see you."

Rey's jaws chomped on the floury burger and its Made with Real Lechón!TM innards one last time, causing a shard of what might be fried pork skin to careen off the aide's eyebrow. "Well, tell him to join the crowd."

And a mighty large crowd it was too, piled on top of the pew-shaped chairs and the faux-communion tables, pushing and shoving over the authentic knot-tiled floors and stealing glimpses from outside the plastic stained-glass windows. Rey Quirino was conducting his publicity blitz tour across the city's new VaticanBurger branches, and the city had turned out to follow him. Truanting schoolchildren and housewives alike gazed in awe at his superhuman appetite, his virility, as he went about snarfing down every item in the menu. The ones he liked, he asked for seconds. Or fourths, in this case.

Discarded wrappers and leftover sauces (He that dippeth my Secret Recipe Ketchup shall receiveth a Taste Explosion!TM) grew on his table like a rubbish dump in cheery colours, wettened and baptised with spilled CommuSoda. Some of the onlookers found themselves staring at it longingly, for reasons they couldn't quite understand.

"Uh sir, I think he means he wants to talk to you." Kristian (probably) said. "He seems like a pretty important person."

Rey was in the indelicate process of masticating a mouthful of fries; with one grease-smeared hand he waved Luiz over. "Do I have an appointment right now?"

Luiz sidestepped the spray of chewed potato discreetly. Rey reminded himself to get him next time.

"No, Rey."

"I didn't think so!" Rey spun on Kristian, whose eyebrow had started to bleed. "Now, you...you just don't know how things are done in this great country. Luiz knows, which is why I remember his name. You don't, which is why I...don't! If whoever he is wants to talk to me, he can make an appointment first. Tell mister whoever he is that no one can take away the constitutional right of the Hero of the Phillipines to eat whenever he likes, wherever he likes! Though, of course," He added, remembering what costed him his last bout of lucrative, lucrative sponsorship, "VaticanBurger is the choice for me!" Since one greasy fist was free, he pumped it into the air and the crowd in the restaurant roared in acknowledgement.

"He's a Senator, Rey." Kristian rallied.

"So what?" Rey finished a Double Congregation-sized CommuSoda in seconds, sucking it up so fiercely that the liter cup imploded. "There's twenty four of them but there's only one of me. Whose time is more important, eh? Eh? Hey, get me some curly fries!" He shouted at the fawning staff at the counter. "Don't think I've tried those yet!"

Unfriendly mutters were starting in the crowd behind his back at this point, but Kristian stood his ground, bleeding stoically from the eyebrow. "He also said it was a matter of national security."

Rey paused. Okay, this could be important.

He remembered the last time the national government had requested, nay, begged for his aid for a matter of national security. The tiff with the Nipponese nutter, that was one. The one with the steroidified super-pigs, too. The Army couldn't do anything about those, could they? Rey's hand shot into his bulging pockets, where he had stuffed all the little toys that came with the Kidz Kommunion Meals. He was not a man for toys, but he made an exception for toys that so faithfully captured his past exploits.

He brought out a tiny rubber pig, one of a set of five, and looked at it. The crowd bobbed, heads drawing closer.

He squeezed it between two fingers. From its oversized nose it emitted a squeak.

The crowd cheered on general principle.

Rey grinned his immaculately whitened grin, which various sauces and bits of gristle failed to tarnish. "Perhaps I do have some time to hear about this grave emergency, after all." He patted his stomach theatrically. "Good people of Cebu City, I must ask you to give us some privacy!"

"Autographs will be half an hour later!" Luiz shouted thoughtfully as the good people of Cebu City heaved and shoved themselves out of the VaticanBurger branch with only minimal injuries by Cebuano standards, which meant everybody could still walk afterwards. With somewhat more shoving, a distant press of men was approaching the store. Rey watched Luiz (in a completely heterosexual, professionally appreciative way, of course) practically skip back beside him to hand him a pile of napkins saved from his gastronomical depredations just as he was looking for something to wipe his hands with. He also turned a brief glare at Kristian that, if Rey had heat vision like some of those fancy foreign superheroes, would have reduced him to floating ash where he stood.

Still, Rey was smiling when his visitor arrived, his trademark cap set at a rakish angle (a last-minute adjustment that left ketchup fingerprints on the brim) and his advertisement-laden, mercifully more stainproof costume puffed up by the chest underneath it. He eyed the supposed Senator, a well-preserved man with a commando moustache in the middle of an entourage of mil-types who didn't seem if they were particularly pleased to meet the great Hero of the Philippines. Screw'em, He has bigger fish to fry.

"Rey, this is Senator Honasan." The aide whose name was probably Kristian said encouragingly.

Rey's face took on an expression of solemn and polite confusion. Luiz bent down and started whispering urgently into Rey's ear. After ten seconds or so, Rey stood up and extended his hand with great gregariousness. "Gringo old friend! What can I do for you?"

Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan, who had never met Rey before, took his hand gravely and succeeded in not wincing visibly when it crushed his own. "I am glad to see you, Rey. I have come to ask you for a favor."

Rey regarded Honasan's lack of wincing with mild disappointment and gradually fading interest in what he has to say. "There is nothing I will not do for this nation and its president." He said, emphasizing the word president. "I heard that it was some sort of national emergency..."

"By our estimation, it is. Though," Honasan went on briskly, "I am not here in an official capacity. It is not a threat that the curr..."

"Hold on a minute now." Rey's tone was decidedly sharper. "Then where's this national emergency coming from? Is it a coup? 'Cause Rey Quirino doesn't do coups."

The Senator looked briefly pained. "Nothing of that sort, Mr. Quirino. Our concerns are somewhat more important that the...current political order."

"Gringo, Gringo. You are losing me." Rey humored. Clearly, it couldn't be that important enough for him to listen to some old-school ex-mil Senator rant at him. "Who are you talking about anyway? You talk like you're part of some big shadowy conspiracy thing."

"Former president Fidel Ramos is rather reclusive these days." Honasan smiled humorlessly.

Rey guffawed. "Ramos? That old codger's still alive?" Then Luiz was bending down with his whispering again, and Rey's expression turned solemn. "Ahem. I mean, I am sorry to hear about his current condition and I wish him an eventual recovery."

"I'm sure he will appreciate your words, but his condition is...his own. He however asks for your help in something that goes far beyond his own health."

"Yeah, sure, anything for the old man." Rey blustered.

For the first time Rey saw the Senator look urgent. "Have you encountered three men on bikes recently? Black bikes?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"Mr. Quirino has been travelling across the islands in his VaticanBurger promotion tour." Luiz interjected. "Nothing of that sort has happened."

"That's right. Luiz would have noticed if any weirdos in bikes had been following me, eh, Luiz?" Rey jabbed his assistant with an elbow. Luiz beamed through the pain.

"Actually..." The aide whose name he was forgetting began, but Rey deliberately ignored him.

"I see." Honasan said suddenly. "Perhaps I came to warn you too early." He waved a quick hand over the scene of gastronomic desolation. "To be honest, I didn't think you would appreciate it, but the ex-president insisted, and his insights can be a bit urgent at times."

"What?" Rey blurted. "That's it? You interrupted Rey Quirino's epic burger tour just to ask about a couple of stalkers who are probably just my security detail? Not that I worry about these things, of course, when I have Luiz to do the worrying. Eh Luiz?" He elbowed Luiz again, who did seem to have an expression of genuine worry under his strained smile.

"Perhaps I did." Honasan was conciliatory. "It would be better for you and the country if I did. But I don't like to think that I came in vain, Mr. Quirino. When your enemy comes – and it will – fight it. Fight it with everything you have. You will understand its nature when it comes for you."

He regarded Rey who stood, open-mouthed. "I see you still have some space to fill with fast food. I don't think I'll take up any more of your valuable time. Good day." The Senator turned, his retinue closed around him and he was gone.

"Well, that was deeply pointless wasn't it, Rey." Luiz's syrupy pep was at odds with his glare at the backs of the departing men. Rubbing his ribs, he was surprised by the unexpected lack of reply. "Rey?"

He saw a rare expression on Rey Quirino's face, which was thoughtfulness.

"Rey! You don't seriously think some ex-mil wankers or whatever are after you, do you? I mean okay, I don't remember hiring bikers to tail the Pajero but it's been a busy few days, right? It's a big contract and you're going to get a lot of publicity out of it and what do you need to worry about anyway? If you're really worried we'll be flying off Cebu tomorrow and..."

"Luiz." Rey said.

Luiz gulped.

"You know Luiz, that Senator guy got one thing right. Where can I get a bunch of ex-mil wankers in black to walk around me like that? It does look pretty badass. Except replace the black with matching outfits! Colored like mine! That'd be even better!"

"I...will ask around. There's been lots of counter-coups lately which means lots of ex-mil wankers looking for work, right? Ahaha."

To be continued...
Last edited by Invictus on Tue Aug 28, 2012 6:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
Coming NEVER
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Shroom Man 777
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

"I ventured out ere the crack of dawn and scattered the bones of orphans." Darkness hissed. "The patterns in which they fell were pleasing to me."


I love this so much.
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"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Ford Prefect »

It's been a while since I've read the opener, and it's still a cracker.
FEEL THESE GUNS ARCHWIND THESE ARE THE GUNS OF THE FLESHY MESSIAH THE TOOLS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION THAT WILL ENACT THE LAW OF MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
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Invictus
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Invictus »

I have to say thank you to my two early readers too, for putting up with previewing much of the story in bite-sized chunks over MSN. But now that I've posted this, I'll probably be dialing down the spoilers so everyone can enjoy the references and so on.
Last edited by Invictus on Tue Feb 21, 2012 7:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
Coming NEVER
User avatar
Invictus
Posts: 1306
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 11:44 pm

Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Invictus »

Outside Cebu City

Rey's customized Pajero rumbled over the muddy country road, emblazoned in his colors and monogrammed with his massively enlarged signature. The signature in particular meant it got stolen at least twice a year, but Rey didn't mind. It just reflected how popular he was. When he ran chicken-hawking cyclists off the road, they practically hurled themselves into the ditches as not to scratch the paint on his car.

He tried to lay back in the luxurious back seat, discomfited by the growing pain in his bowels. His finger hovered near the control for the seat's prostate massager, but he thought better of it. His bowels had been sorely tested as of late, and he reckoned it needed the rest.

Indeed, his bowels have performed heroically.

VaticanBurger was the brainchild of some Chinese bigshot whose name he couldn't remember (all he could remember was the girth and the lack of hair, and anyway he had Luiz to remember names), a Catholicism-themed fast food restaurant which was some kind of weird cultural exchange experiment or something. Store locations were converted into plastic and glass-fiber cathedrals, counter staff were dressed in aprons that looked like vestments and the food...well, there were definitely a lot of Catholic themes in it. Rey wasn't sure how the local Church was ever okay with it, but he assumed that a lot of money changed hands over their lack of concern.

And as much as The Philippines was the most Christian country in Asia, people had mostly shown up at the newly opened branches to point and laugh. Business struggled, and VaticanBurger's regional execs had thrown themselves at his feet for succour. Spokesman deal, as you'd expect. His was the touch that could turn the most bizarre and excretory of fast food franchises to gold. Edible gold.

Rey, on his part, just happened to have a gap regarding fast food in his well-sponsored lifestyle – he reckoned McDonalds must have caught wind of him walking into that Jolibee (See Bawal Umihi Dito. Continuity in a Rey Quirino story, folks! - Vicious Vic) – when Luiz brought the deal to him. The money wasn't that impressive, but the management had lots of friends among toy factories back in China, and mentioned the opportunity to have Rey's likeness and past acts of glory reproduced a a million giveaway toys, changing eager hands across the nation. With that, VaticanBurger's executives looked up at Rey and shouted "Save us!" And Rey looked down and said "Sure." and rubbed his thumb and forefingers together.

After Rey came onboard, VaticanBurger became the fastest-growing fast food franchise in Filipino history. The franchise cleverly capitalized on the hype with its Special Indulgence OfferTM for anyone who admitted to ever have badmouthed the chain: submitting a recantation earned the chance to be personally forgiven by the Hero of the Philippines himself, and a discount. That brought in the pesos alright. Ah, pesos, Rey's second favourite thing in the world.

But for now, Rey groaned slightly and rubbed his most favourite thing in the world – namely, himself, and specifically in the gut. Even with his marvellous and expensive physique, its distended bulk was visible through his costume. In truth, he would rather not be doing this if it weren't for cementing his commitment to the VaticanBurger brand. And the pesos.

Yeah, he really didn't feel like using the prostate massager. Especially with the strange way Luiz looked at him every time he did, which simply was not something he felt he could emotionally handle right now. Maybe he wanted one for his seat too.

"Hey Luiz, where're we to next?" Rey asked his assistant, who had been positively manic since they left the restaurant.

"Where? We're a good way to Mandaue already." Luiz unfolded a huge map. "Dreary little town really, but a VaticanBurger outlet or two ought to brighten it up. Saturation is the key, eh? We'll see how much time we spend there before we hit what's left of Cebu..."

Rey found it increasingly difficult to focus on what Luiz was saying. Instead, he was growing acute of every bump and squelch in the road, despite the fancy foreign refitted springs in his Pajero.

He reached over and jabbed Luiz's map. "Let go to Carcar instead."

"Why, Rey? It's further away..."

"Because I need to go to Carcar right now." Rey said with a hint of a snarl.

"I don't understand..."

"By which I mean stop the car right now, because I'm going to Carcar right in the Pajero if you don't!" Rey was all high-pitched mock-civil all of a sudden, which was always a bad sign. "That damn timetable of yours which had me stuffing myself with shitty fast food with my face on it for days has left, shall I say, not enough opportunities to fulfil my dignity as a human being. Which is to say, I'm jam-packed with more shit than could ever be contained in the bowels of a lesser man. The only thing stopping me from drowning the inside of this car in a veritable anal Pinatubo right now is my mighty sphincter. And it's buckling, Luiz. I can feel it counting down to the shit-o-clastic flow."

They stopped the car. Rey hopped out discreetly, because not even the Hero of the Philippines could be seen to take a crap in public. To relieve the desperate pressure in the lower regions though, he did step into the bushes to take a piss, taking particular care to aim at a tree. Of course, chances are that no pygmy-spirit will spring out to bite his tonker off, since after the thing with the Duwendes the Cebu government had outlawed all trees within city limits. Great swathes of forest were cut down and exorcised, the fallen timber either burnt in merry bonfires or sold to spiritually conservationist Scandinavian furniture makers to pay for the new city hall. The forests were then re-planted with imported trees which were certified parasitic spirit-free by EVIL Inc. and for those who could afford it, Saintly Solutions, simply the best private security firm in the world. If Filipinos couldn't trust foreigners with guns, who could they trust?

Rey watched the tree anyway, daring something to materialize at its base as it was splattered with urine. You never know whether sloppy local governments would miss bits of forest. To his disappointment, nothing happened. Oh well, that was water under the bridge. Rey still needed to take care of the main business. That abandoned church in the woods should make pretty good cover.

Walking with a careful, crab-legged gait as not to jog his guts too much, Rey reached the building. Tropical vegetation had overwhelmed whatever grandeur it used to possess and the roof was gone in places, but it was better than nothing. "What a fatty." Rey muttered under his breath at the man he'd met who was VaticanBurger's founder, the author of all his current troubles.

Rey squatted between two empty pews and yanked down his advertisement-laden trousers. His mind was so focused on imminent relief that his superhuman hearing almost didn't pick up the muffled footsteps that were getting closer to the ruined building.

"Jesus titty-sucking Christ." Rey exclaimed (quietly, because it was still sorta a holy place). Couldn't a man poop in a church in peace? He stayed low and scowled, hoping the footsteps belonged to some dumb lost native or something who would get lost by itself while he exerted the terrible might of his glutes to hold it in a little longer. But no such luck: they were definitely heading for the church; in other words, for him.

For Rey, risking life and limb was one thing since doing that shit only made him more popular. But risking his image was another thing. Not even the Hero of the Philippines can be seen taking a dump in a church.

On the other hand, he really, really needed to poop right now.

Perhaps he can use his superspeed, run out into the woods and take his dump there before whoever it is comes in. Rey made an experimental twitch with his super-fast-twitch muscles...and instantly dismissed the notion when the merciless press against his gates of manhood spiked to intolerable levels. He had to stay put, or...

"<Mister Quirino>?" An English voice with an American accent echoed inside the church.

"<Good day American citizen! How can I help you!>" Rey stood up and did his pants at the same time with considerable speed and aplomb, ignoring the pain brought about by the sudden shift in ballast. "<You are Mister->...uh..." His words faltered as he actually caught sight of the man through the haze of his bowel-purgatory.

The American was tall and athletic. Sweat rolled from his face and dripped down the neck of his tracksuit. His hair was bleached blond and spiked. But what Rey noticed first was the strange and unnatural orangey-brown color of his skin, though there was no doubting that he was American; he walked in like he owned the place.

"<Mister Rey Quirino, right? Hang on a mo', I got something for you.>" The American dropped his kit bag on to a nearby pew, which splintered with a puff of mold.

Rey's brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

"<You got an appointment with me, yo?>" He managed.

"<Sure do, broppenheimer>!" The kit bag was swiftly unzipped, and from it the strange American man shook out an equally strange assemblage of belts and armor plate. "<And you got yourself an appointment with destiny.>"

"<I'm not quite gettin' ya, man. You wanna autograph?>" Rey worked through his mastery of the American language. What does this schmuck want with him? Typical American, always thinking they have more important business than his toilet breaks.

The American was putting the thing on over his tracksuit with practised ease, and Rey was beginning to see what it was – a pair of armored gauntlets with tubes and what looked like ammunition belts attached to them, harnessed to the body with many belts.

"<But first,>" He said with a slight grin, after adjusting some final straps, "<Let me shake the hand of the Hero of the Philippines.>"

Everything was suddenly clear to Rey, who responded with his own grin. Typical Americans and their macho contests huh? Think they could overpower Rey Quirino's crushing grip with some late-night bargain exercise kit junk, huh? Try to out-handshake him on his own turf, huh? Such men needed to be taught a lesson.

And the lesson is that this country isn't theirs any more. This country is Rey's!

The American held out his hand at a strange angle. Rey seized it, intending to be rid of him as soon as possible as the great intersection of nationalism, ego and gastric necessity demanded. Sweaty palm contended against unyielding metal for half a second too long, and Rey, jolted out of his semi-autopilot by the sudden awkwardness, realized that he was staring down what looked like several gun barrels aligned with the American's knuckles.

Which shot him. In the face. With depleted uranium buckshot.

"Argh! My face!" Rey reeled backward, clutching his face. "My future photoshoots!"

The American took the opportunity to tag Rey in the gut with another load of depleted uranium buckshot. "<Name's Chaos, by the way. Nice to meet you.>"

"My dignity!" Rey squealed by way of response.

Oiled metal churned audibly as auto-reloaders cycled fresh rounds into Chaos' shotgun knuckles. "<Thought you'd be dodging shit like a metahuman shit-dodger, which is why I picked the buckshot.>" He said conversationally. "<Dunno why you ain't, though. Woulda packed something with more punch if I knew.>" He aimed his barrel-adorned fists forward, all business. "<Still, I never complain about my lucky breaks.>"

Rey was in fact trying with all his might to dodge having to shit, and the buckshot to the gut wasn't helping. More depleted uranium buckshot impacted his face, his shoulders and his arms as he flailed about, trying in vain to deflect the merciless barrage. Piping and padding was torn from his well-sponsored jumpsuit even as the wooden furnishings of the church disintegrated around and behind him.

"<Full autogyromatic belt-fed reloaders!>" Chaos chortled, as Rey's whimpers of womanly distress were buried under the continuous torrent of gunshots. "<Computerized fire-rate throttling mechanisms! Bluetooth shot counters! All I need to do is point and hold down the triggers!>"

"You backstabbing shit!" Rey's anger asserted itself for a moment, and without thinking he lunged forward to pound the American wanker into the hamburger that his kind so loved. "I've had bigger shits than..." The white-hot pain from his gentlemen's egress waited until this point to politely draw attention to itself again, which reduced Rey's words into a tortured squeak as his entire lower body cramped up and turned his charge into a face-first dive into the floor.

"<Smart choice. I'd also have taken that dive if I were you.>" Chaos stopped shooting to make himself heard over the cacophony echoing between the church walls. "<My employer ain't as full of warmth, human understanding and workin' class sympathy as I am, and I just shot a man in the middle of a handshake.>"

He got down on one knee to address the back of Rey's supine head. "<To tell you the truth, brono, I don't want to stay in your country for one minute longer than I need to and I've just about got the stomach to make this look convincing. And I'm not exactly filling in progress reports here, if you know what I mean. So what if the Hero of the Philippines stays out of the way while my bossperson does his thing, and I stop trying to fill you with depleted uranium? That good?>"

Rey, shaking, mumbled something into the ground.

"<Wassat?>"

"...I SAID NO ONE MAKES ME SHIT MY OWN SHIT!!!" Rey roared, leading his sudden ascent with a double haymaker. Chaos, who wasn't stupid enough to wander into melee range with a metahuman, skipped backwards in surprise as the wind of the blow slapped his face.

"No one makes me shit my own shit." Rey repeated, his face stained with sweat and moss. He swayed, his body hot, his legs quivering. "No one."

"<So I guess that's a no.>" Chaos pumped fresh shells into his knuckle-barrels: the twitch of a finger for each barrel and a clench of the fist for that satisfying clunk of four shells hitting the firing chambers. "<The boss'll be happy about this all right.>"

"<You should be more worried about how mad I am.>" Rey's rage against his humiliation had tuned his mind to white-hot crystal: every lesson from his private trash-talking coach was suddenly there. He gripped the closest pew and heaved. Fingers bit into rotten wood and the entire wooden bench came free with a wet crack. "<Now eat pew!>"

Rey brought the pew down like a massive club. The building shook with the sound of eight discharging barrels as half the pew became splinters. Pale-fleshed wood showered over Chaos as he ducked and rolled, the rest of the pew smashing through the floorboards where he was a moment ago.

"<Oh yeah?>" Rey tossed what was left of the pew at Chaos, who shot it to pieces and shielded his face from the flying debris. "<Have another!>"

Rey uprooted another pew and swung it across the church interior, gritting his teeth as the pivot of his hips brought another wave of agony. His opponent went low, ducking behind the remaining benches as Rey swept the giant bank of wood after him. Chaos shot out of the other side just as the pew ploughed into its fellows like an explosion meeting an avalanche, legs pumping, and loosed another volley of shots at Rey. This had about as much effect on Rey, as it turned out, as it would on a metahuman who was too tough to be hurt by depleted uranium buckshot and was too mad to care about the pain.

Rey would have taken advantage of this, if he wasn't also too mad to notice.

Uttering an utterly incoherent roar of rage, he brought the demolished pew-stump over his head and heaved it at Chaos. It caught fire as it flew through the stagnant air.

"<Jesus fuck!>" Chaos' last shot went wide as he dived aside, making a sieve of the ceiling. The burning pew-jectile missed his head by inches as it sped past him and out of the church's doorway, where it hit a tree and exploded.

"<Ha! Missed!>" Chaos' dive became a practised roll and he sprang back upright without missing a beat. Until he noticed that the close encounter had set his hair gel on fire. "<Argh! Fuck!>"

"Ha! Like a New Year firecracker!" Cackling triumphantly, Rey ripped free the last intact pew in the church. Hefting it, he marched purposefully towards Chaos, who was preoccupied with patting out the fire on his head, a feat made difficult by the bulk of his gauntlets and the spiked and hardened topography of his hair.

"<Oh, fuck!>" Chaos said, looking up.

As Rey swung the rotten, abused pew over his head like a conquering chieftain, something in the wood gave way. Half of the bench, connected only by a few wet and twisted fibers to the segment he was brandishing, fell down and hit Rey in the head.

"<Ha!>" Chaos said.

"Raaagh!" Rey raged.

"<Yeah, whatever.>" His hair successfully reduced to a smoulder, Chaos tossed one of his signature dice-shaped flashbangs at the apoplectic superhero. "<If you ain't taking the dive, I'm taking the exit.>"

As the grenade flew towards Rey all slow-like to his super-senses, something other than his ailing loins seemed to call to him, from the back of his mind. Something that seemed to be calling his name.

"What?" He said out loud. Momentarily distracted, he instinctively grasped a half-pew in each hand and cracked it like a pair of nunchucks, whipping the die-bomb out of the air.

"<What.>" Chaos said, before covering his eyes.

But because Rey has no idea how to use a broken pew as nunchucks, what actually happened was the flashbang bounced off Rey's improvised pew-chucks and into his face, and detonated.

"Gaaagh!" Rey was stunned and blinded and doubly enraged, and he flailed his pew-chucks in a storm around him like a man possessed, pulverizing everything around him.

"<This is rich.>" Chaos taunted. "<You can't even hear where I am with your fancy super-senses, can you?">"

Rey responded by stumbling into a wall and demolishing it in a frenzy, bringing down half of what remained of the roof.

"<Bwahaha! Dance monkey, dance!>" Chaos primed more dice-grenades and chucked them at Rey, who flailed and danced and waved his pew-chucks ineffectually as things he couldn't see exploded in clouds of tear gas around him, exploded in shrapnel around him, or bounced into the space between his legs and then exploded in pain at him.

Rey couldn't see anything but white. He couldn't hear anything but the ringing in his ears and the roar of his own blood, and he certainly couldn't feel anything but pain. And with that the voice at the back of his mind seemed to come through a little more clearly.

"Rey!"

Not now, his subconscious thought. I'm trying the darnedest to pulp some guy here.

"Rey Quirino!"

Look, I'm blind and deaf and really need to shit and I'm being pelted with gimmick grenades by some crazy American who has a hit on me.
His subconscious replied. Can't you at least wait until I fucking murder him?

"REY CHARLIE QUIRINO I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!" The voice thundered, unmistakeably female. "NOW SNAP OUT OF YOUR RIDICULOUS BRUCE LEE IMPRESSION AND LISTEN!"

And at that very moment, a thunderburst struck the ruined church.

And several minutes before that very moment, a cargo plane flying inexplicably low overhead which was carrying a tank of untreated sewage for some reason developed an unaccountable breach in its fuselage and emptied its load in a remarkably concentrated fashion. The long brown stream of descending sewage spent several minutes making its way to ground level, and at an instant after that very moment it hit the church like the very contempt of Heaven.

Shit hammered the wrecked building and poured through the massive holes in the roof, drowning the interior in steaming, stinking effluvium.

Chaos swore and shook uncontrollably like an American confronting the truth of being covered in more sewage between heaven and earth than could be dreamed of in his reality shows. Slipping and sliding, he retreated in a desperate search for toilet paper.

Meanwhile, the cold stickiness and the sheer smell dampened Rey's anger and returned him to his senses. The pew-chucks fell from his hands and he stared at himself, covered in the muck.

"I'm a bit sorry about that, but I'm new at this intervening from beyond the veil of death business. Usually it's reserved for saints."

"Only a bit sorry, huh." Rey said out loud. "And what the hell is going on, mysterious invisible voice?" He looked down and averted his eyes. It was a sorry sight. "This better be worth covering me in shit. And my costume!"

"Let me explain...wait, let's try this first."

Something coalesced in Rey's field of vision. A genial, familiar silhouette.

"The late Corazon Aquino, ex-President of the Philippines!" Rey exclaimed. "Hey Cory, what's up?"

"Watching you, Rey. And thinking long and hard over doing this." Cory said severely. "But you're the one it wants, so I have to come to warn you about an evil that threatens to plunge the Philippines into utter darkness."

"You know," Rey said as he wiped unspeakable gunk off his frayed sleeves. "That senator, whatshisname, said something like that. I guess there really is someone out to get me, huh?"

"Not someone. Something." Cory said. "An inhuman force of malevolence that seeks to steal the soul of this country for itself. Who you just fought off was one of its pawns, and he's not the only one."

"Nothing I couldn't handle if it weren't for my, uh, temporary digestion problem." Rey muttered. "Which is still kind of there and I really hope you aren't going to haunt me while I, you know, solve it."

"You don't seem surprised that a dead president has come back to the mortal world to watch over you." The spirit chided.

"I once booted a pygmy-demon into orbit. You just get used to these things when you're a superhero like me, you know?" Rey continued his abortive attempts to clean himself on his surroundings, which were failing because they were no cleaner than he was. "Shit, man. I need to call my assistant." He pulled out his cell phone, or at least what was left of it after being thoroughly pounded by depleted uranium buckshot while in Rey's pocket. "Oh fuck this. Moses better not have driven off in the Pajero."

Rey squelched around what was left of the abandoned church. The shade of Cory followed, a constant nattering presence at the edge of his vision.

"The pawns aren't the problem, Rey. The creature you face is no mere demon. Its very presence in the country is tipping the balance, triggering signs that shouldn't be happening. If it finds what it's looking for, you won't have a country to be hero of any more. Rey! Are you listening?"

"Fine! Look, it's not like I won't help you. Rey Quirino will, like, never do without the good people of the Philippines. Just point me at the demon thing when I see it so I can hit it, okay? It's my job to hit things. Especially things that get shit all over Rey Quirino. Uh, except you, of course." Rey said to the ghost a bit awkwardly.

"We should get going then. Rey?" Cory hovered, puzzled, as Rey shuffled in place.

"I still need to, you know..." He gestured vaguely at his lower body.

"Is that what you're worried about?"

"Look man, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

The spirit sighed audibly. "I'll do you this favour, Rey, if that's what's needed to get you going. But I won't have the power to do much else afterwards. The veil is getting thinner but it isn't thin enough yet."

"What?" Rey blurted but the shade of Corazon Aquino was gone.

And then it rained. Clean, pure water the likes of which is never tasted in the Philippines, washing away the sewage like soap. It hit Rey like the best shower he's ever had, cleaning him and refreshing him better than any five star hotel bathroom he's been in. Even as the miracle rainwater soaked him it also seemed to soak through him, massaging his insides and alleviating the pains and bruises of his fight with Chaos, as well as every bit of wear and tear he had suffered from his whirlwind promotion tour over Cebu. And all his worries too, seemed to vanish.

For the first time in days Rey Quirino relaxed. So did his sphincter.

To be continued...
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
Coming NEVER
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Ford Prefect »

Can you just imagine this story as penciled by Greg Land? Actually don't, it is too horrifying.
FEEL THESE GUNS ARCHWIND THESE ARE THE GUNS OF THE FLESHY MESSIAH THE TOOLS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION THAT WILL ENACT THE LAW OF MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Invictus »

Given the dearth of characters who can be traced from porn models in this story so far, it might force Greg Land to actually draw people for once. :lol:

On the other hand, Corazon Aquino as traced from a porn model...brrr.
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
Coming NEVER
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Bluetooth shot counters!


"The late Corazon Aquino, ex-President of the Philippines!"


:lol:
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"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Invictus »

(Author's note: it is recommended that you read all of Darkness' lines out loud)

Somewhere else outside Cebu City, the next day

Chaos was having a good day for once. Getting rained on by sewage tended to give a whole new perspective on what constituted a good day. "Yo Brostrogoth! What've you been up to?"

"Spent all night kidnapping slum children." Edge said in that somnambulant voice of his. "You?"

They were sitting on their big black demon bikes which they had dragged all the way off the roads and into some weird dead forest of some kind. A brook burbled suspiciously before them, the waters strange and noisome and filled with garbage. Somewhere nearby, a shantytown cast a pall of smoke over the lightening sky.

"Hey don't start that kind of conversation here, Brofield." Chaos complained. "Think about my feelings, man. I just spent yesterday recovering, recovering here from a half-assed hit job on a superhero who totally outclassed me. I used up all the hot water in the hotel just to get the smell off of me. And now I'm just starting to enjoy a day where it looks like I won't be covered in...sewage. I don't need to start thinking about stuff that's got to do with bad hygiene, like you know slums. Or third-world children."

Edge turned. "Well you did ask. I'm just giving the facts here."

"Okay! I've finished asking. Now quit your fucking brain deathmatch and shut the hell up, okay?"

Edge's arm reached up and thumped his own head lightly, once. The metahuman mercenary's posture shifted in a way that anyone who hadn't worked with him for as long as Chaos had wouldn't have noticed.

"Right, what was I saying." Edge said, his voice more natural. "Ah, okay... Yeah, I'm sorry, man. In my futile defence, I don't want to be with our mutual employer any more than you do."

"S'okay, bro. I know."

Edge was the sole successful product of some budget supersoldier project. One of the many modifications made to him was a network of computing nodes in his brain that let him build and run simulations at extremely high speeds. The theory was that it would allow him to rapidly attune to any combat scenario and play it over in his head a thousand-million times, grasping all the variables and calculating the most optimal set of tactical manoeuvres for him to take even before the fight would begin. Combined with the heightened reflexes and other physical enhancements built into him, it should have made Edge an unbeatable combat tactician.

The problem was one of inclination. Perhaps the nameless backers of Project: SERAPHIM could have based their candidate screening on tighter criteria, or perhaps they should have gone further than excising the subject's conscience and actively nudged his brain chemistry towards psychopathic bloodlust. But they didn't, and they ended up with a supersoldier who didn't relish the ability to know a million ways to kill anyone he met as soon as he met them and then brag about it in front of them, as it were.

So by the time Edge found himself swimming the murky waters of the globetrotting mercenary market, he was managing well enough with his generic super-soldier modifications. And he claimed that never got used to all the whizbanging in his head, anyway.

Something that Edge did spend the effort doing though, apparently, was to convert all that unused brain-machinery into some kind of free-floating wargaming simulation that he spent more time tinkering with than paying attention to the outside world. And what did pay attention to the outside world while he did that was basically a zombie cobbled together from programmed reflexes, memory search routines and dialogue trees. It let Edge pass as an extremely literal-minded autist while he was effectively unconscious, which always impressed Chaos when he thought about it. Which was rarely, especially when he was the one who had to put up with the zombie auto-responder's mondo unslick repartee.

When Edge was with it though, he was a pretty cool bro. Total geek, but pretty cool.

"Okay. Why all the children?" Chaos asked after looking at the polluted stream for a bit.

"I thought you didn't want to know."

"Now that I think about it, I don't wanna get into more shit than I've went through, you know? And kidnapping children is the kind of thing that attracts superheroes like nothing's business."

Edge indicated the smoke in the horizon with a tilt of his head. "Slum children. Won't be missed."

"But why?"

"Do I look like I want to hear him rant his explanation at me?"

"Yeah. Good point."

Edge nodded. "Let's not be too invested in this particular enterprise. Whatever pays the bills, no?"

"You do the best justifications, brocrates." Chaos stretched in the morning light. "I knew there's a reason I put up with you."

They sat.

"Bossperson doesn't want to be disturbed?" Chaos bit down "-with the children?"

"You know him as well as I do. We first met him in a bar two nights ago."

"Well, we were paid a lot not to ask questions. Big temper tantrums otherwise."

"A creature of moods and...things."

"What did we agree to call it when he rants? 'Darksplaining?'"

"Exactly."

"And if you two pathetic mortals are done chattering, I'd like you to attend to me by the pool." The voice of Darkness wafted over the intercoms they'd sworn they had switched off.

The two pathetic mortals almost jumped, but didn't. They weren't about to provide the satisfaction.

Chaos and Edge picked their way deeper into the dead woods, following the stream. The water flowed listlessly over eroded soil until it flattened into what Darkness called the pool, a shallow puddle under the shadow of a scrubby slope. Darkness, too-tight trenchcoat flapping in a non-existent wind, stood upon the crest.

Under Darkness were the kidnapped children. They dragged themselves around the brackish pool, scuffling listlessly over a bottle of cough syrup.

"We bought the one with the biggest number on the price label." Edge said by way of explanation.

"That doesn't explain anything, brodinger." said Chaos.

"There is precious little to explain to the likes of you." Darkness interjected from his dark perch. "In your presumption, you have failed me in destroying the pathetic hero of the Philippines. This was the least-duty I have placed upon you even as I myself redoubled my efforts to uncover that damned locus. Both these things lay yet unaccomplished, and I have grown weary of my paltry progress." Countless veins writhed in his neck, and his sideburns seemed to bristle like a lizard's frill. "I have come to this land as a pilgrim, a humble metic on a black hajj for its heartless heart. I have spilled the blood and cracked the bones of its hosts, as is the custom! Did I not deliver my fair entreaty upon their dying screams? Do I not deserve the way opened to my twisted throne? I did not come here to be denied my final ascension! Yet..."

"What did I tell you about explanations, bro?" Edge hissed at the stupefied Chaos. "What did I tell you, dawg?"

"Don't blame me, broethe." Chaos shot back quietly. "It just keeps happening!"

"...I could have harrowed this land under a tide of shadow. I could have rent its recalcitrant soil until it had yielded its prize to me. But such are resorts of the weak and the foolish. What use is a world that will not recognize its rightful master? What power is the whip to the hand that must raise it? Long have I journeyed through the arteria of the night, and six hundred and sixty-six seals I have broken to reach this world, branding my new flesh with their shattered sigils. The was the price I paid for myriad forbidden wisdoms which even now I impart the barest outline upon you, with no price in return! Yes, no bloodletting, no cursebrands, no eye-blations! Do you see what is at stake?

But enough about you. I learned far too late that this world has no opportunity that is not seized. Foolishly I sought a master to serve, to pile myself with greater power and greater honour! But the mighty kings I slew and the jewelled realms I despoiled were no more than lies, broken shadows of a vaster grand guignol! So I sought the truth! To throw open what lied beneath the sacred and the profane! Upon such desecrations are my destiny writ, the world promised me by its own snivelling words! My fall blazed brighter than the hosts of heaven! My ascension shall be heralded by all the furies of hell!"

Darkness raised his arms and long, slow peals of thunder rumbled over the horizon, as though chanted by many tongues. The morning light darkened. The children cowered in uncomprehending fear.

"Brood of my sins! Slaves to my triumph! PREPARE FOR GLORY!"

"Quick suggestion, bossperson." Chaos ventured. "We're kind of compromising our occult cover here."

Darkness was breathing heavily, but he spared a glare at his henchman. And there it was in his eyes, a spark of hunger? Fear?

"It is not my hand that forces this resort. If I am to squander my shadowed sovereignty, I shall at least squander it knowingly. Your...failure to dispose of Rey Quirino has proven that his defeat was not meant for the likes of you. No. I have walked these patterns before. The desperate supplication! The sword in the back! The duty to crush him falls rightfully to me. Yes, so I claim! So I decree! After all, he is the chosen one! The sacrificial pig of his people! His is the blood that I shall use to scribe new pages in the book of fate! It is only fitting that my ascension will draw his star higher than what he deserves, before I cast it into the cold depths of oblivion! All will still proceed accordingly. Yes."

The distant thunder now came in sporadic beats, like the tread of a giant. Fog, long dissipated by the morning sunlight, rolled in slow carpets back over the earth. Tremors rippled over the water of the pool.

Darkness marched off the crest and proceeded down the small slope slowly, funereally. The wake of his trenchcoat left a trail of withered weeds.

"Blood calls to blood. Vein links to vein. A mere sting will trepidate the most well-concealed heart, as long the sting is sufficient. The land has wallowed in its insolence for long enough. Today, its heart will feel fear."

He reached the lip of the brackish pool but did not break his stride. The children scrambled aside to let him pass as the puddle-like depression swallowed him to the waist. As the simple rainbow ripples fractured into hypnotic, rebounding patterns, Darkness' very substance seemed to dissolve into the pool, suffusing the polluted water with an even darker bloom.

"Behold." Darkness said quietly. "The black blood of the earth is invoked."

Edge sniffed. "Smells like gasoline."

"Silence! The unholy communion shall not be disturbed!" Darkness reached down and scooped up a handful of the now foul and tarry substance of the pool. "Now children, drink of this wicked draught. It is liquid evil, far more potent than the paltry stuff you have yet tasted in your lives. Drink of nightmares and truths beyond the world! Drink!"

The thunder was even louder now, even slower. Chaos looked up nervously. It didn't seem to sound like thunder any more, reverberating through him with every hammer-blow.

The children were looking at the stuff spilling from Darkness' hands dubiously, as though they were not at all enthralled by the dark miracle. But they were; so slowly, one by one, they dipped their dirty hands into the black pool and started to gulp down the brew.

"It is sealed. Yes." Darkness hissed triumphantly. "One final step remains..."

An explosion rocked the dead forest. It was definitely not thunder.


The dead forest

Rey brushed down his fresh clean costume in the middle of latest crater he made. It felt great, being able to do his super-jumps again.

Very close now, came Cory's final whispers. I cannot follow you any closer. He twists his own hell around him like an amaranthine mantle...

"Uh, all right then. See you later." The downside of being on the epic quest was Rey felt super self-conscious talking to himself, even out in the sticks where there was nobody around. Unlike the woods he pissed in (and got...well, let's not recount that part), this creepy dead forest is probably where the Cebu City government's tree replanting plan didn't work out and it didn't bother to re-replant the trees, leaving a lot of dead transplants around the less important zones i.e. where the poor people lived.

"Very close, huh..." Rey said to himself and scanned the landscape with his super-senses. There wasn't a lot of cover among the dead trees, and the only prominent bit he could see was a small rise in the terrain, which a small brook wound around. And which a familiar face peeked from behind of briefly, just as Rey was looking in its direction.

"Hey you! The American fitness freak!" Rey shouted. "<I've got shit to settle with you!>"

As he stomped towards the rise, he heard with his super-hearing several other voices in some kind of fierce discussion, including one which was louder than the others going "Just as planned!" a lot.

Then the American poked his head from behind the rise again. "<Well, yeah, let's finish this, brobunaga!>"

"<You bet your ass I gonna!>" Rey broke into a furious run, intending to clear the entire obstacle in a single leap and confront whatever evildoings were behind it. By God and Baby Jesus, the things he would do to that guy who got shit all over him in particular.

He leapt. A dozen pouncing shapes met him in midair, forms trailing dark smoke.

Rey uppercutted the first two in their leering canine faces, shattering their skulls and sending their headless bodies clear of the dead tree canopy, where they evaporated into shadow.

But then the rest of the creatures slammed into him and bore him into the ground. They were twisted, dog-like skeletons, and Rey could feel the dark power that steamed from their frames as clearly as the infernal heat from the growling engines inside their ribcages.

One tried to close pincer-like jaws around his neck. Rey pried the jaws back open, and then pried them off the thing, and then beat it to death with them.

He raised the jawbones threateningly at the other hellhounds. "Anybody else want some? Huh?"

The other hellhounds waited exactly long enough for the jawbones in Rey's hands to evaporate as their original owner's binding lapsed, then pounced in unison.

Rey stood his ground. They broke against him, demonic bone no match for metahuman flesh, and he burst out of the pile of them roaring, two of the stunned creatures caught between his arms. Rey then smashed them into the ground in what he thought was a pretty good double chokeslam. They exploded obligingly.

He got back up, the smoking demon-shards around him a mere distraction from the aftermath of a fighting manoeuvre that was a lot more complicated than what he had seen on TV. Then the lasers hit him.

Another hellhound tackled Rey from behind, preventing him from catching all but the briefest glimpse of the man advancing towards him, smoking gun in each hand.

Rey reached over his shoulder and grabbed the thing pawing burn-marks all over his costume by the neck. He straightened and hurled the hellhound at the new attacker.

The man brought one gun up and a glowing arc of light extended from its barrel. Rey realized that they weren't guns. They were gunblades. Laser gunblades.

He spun and slashed, and the hellhound fell in half in midair. And then because the two halves were still flying at him, he sidestepped and avoided the disintegrating halves with consummate ease.

"<And who are you?>" Rey demanded.

"<My name is Edge.>" The man said. He was slimmer than the other American, yet still tall and athletic. He was wearing a charcoal-black suit over a T-shirt and racer sunglasses. His hair was a dirty white and haphazardly tossed. "<You probably haven't heard of me, but I already know everything I need to know about how you fight. I could have fought this battle in my head a million times, figured out all the angles, made your defeat appropriately ironic. But it doesn't look like you're worth the effort. >"

"<Oh yeah? That's what she said!>" Rey retorted. That wasn't very good, was it.

Rey mentally placed the blame on the distracting hellhounds as he grabbed the last of them and tore it in half in a burst of black oil and cable-viscera. "I mean, <Halt evildoer! Are you the mastermind behind all this?>"

One corner of Edge's lip twitched upwards. "<Were that I was.>" He switched off his laser bayonet thing and raised both gunblades, striking what Rey had to admit was a pretty cool fighting pose. "<No, this ain't your story, Rey Quirino. You'll regret getting to the bottom of this. >"

Rey struck his own tirelessly rehearsed classic: chest puffed, fists at hips, head turned slightly sideways. "<But I am going to. Because I am the Hero of the Philippines! REY QUIRINO!>"

A silent wind blew.

Several seconds later Rey lost his patience and charged Edge, screaming.

Edge smirked, and stepped past Rey's first punch with preternatural speed. His gunblades hissed and Rey was suddenly stumbling off balance. He shook his head and recovered, turning frantically until he was facing Edge again. "<What is this, hide-and-seek? Stand and fight me like a supervillain!>"

Edge gestured at his chest.

Rey looked down at the giant X-shaped gash in his costume. Not his costume again!

No, Rey thought as he took deep breaths. He can play this cool. This was real struggle-for-the-soul-of-the-country stuff here, what he was getting into. With actual spirit guides and supernatural manifestations and shit. He couldn't blow his game when he hasn't even gotten past the henchmen.

"<Idiot!>" He crowed, forcing himself to laugh. "<You couldn't even get your initial right!>"

Edge's immediate expression was one of incomprehension, so Rey gesticulated at his own chest and added: "<There's no 'X' in 'Edge'! See?>"

Edge raised an eyebrow. "<Point.>"

Rey beamed inwardly as a barrage of lasers hammered into his body. He scored the first round!

Reeling and smoking, Rey steadied himself and jinked left and right with his super-speed, kicking up explosions of dirt, only to discover that he couldn't dodge lasers like bullets as Edge kept the barrage of pulses trained on him. Glowing lines of ionized air fanned and rippled as the mercenary spun and aimed his dual weapons. Superheated plastic from the laser-melted advertisements were burning through Rey's costume and splashing onto his skin like wax, bubbling. The dead trees were totally inadequate cover from the way they popped and burned as Rey weaved between them. He needed to fight smarter, not harder.

"REY JUMP!" He shouted, but didn't jump.

Instead, as the weight of fire slackened in that instant of distraction, Rey bulled through the lasers to close the distance with Edge and bring his fists into play.

Straining his superhuman reflexes, Edge skipped back from the first punch and swerved away from the second, using the momentum to rake the gunblade in his opposite hand across Rey's eyes. The impact nearly dislocated his arm as the metal of his glowing blade glanced off the invulnerable face.

But the shock was enough to rob Rey of his momentum. He fell back by reflex, clutching his eyes and swearing, as Edge retreated to a safe distance.

"<You know what, Rey Quirino?>"

"<What?>" Rey snapped, rubbing his face.

"<You're wrong. There is an 'X' in 'Edge'.>"

"<Hang on. There is?>" Rey blurted, blinking his reddened eyes. Panic and embarrassment welled up inside him as his incomplete grasp of English threatened to undo the best rejoinder he had come up with for ages.

"<No.>" He said. His shoulders drooped. "<It can't be.>"

"<Come on. Would I fool you?>"

"<No...>" Rey felt like sinking to his knees. He should have known, or at least should have did his homework on the 90's superhero scene before launching his public career! Back then, the Americans put X's in everything, didn't they? How could he have forgotten that? How was he supposed to be the saviour of the Philippines with such sub-par banter?

"Wait." Rey said to himself, his face red. "<You totally would fool me!>" He suddenly shrieked at Edge. "<You're a bad guy! Just like that other American who shot me in the middle of a handshake! In the face!>"

He stomped his foot, making a small crater. "<You won't fool me again! Fool me once and shame on me, but fool me twice and shame on...you! Prepare to wish that you were dead instead of receiving the pounding you're going to get from me!>"

"<Ooh! You mad?>" Edge cooed as Rey charged. As if on cue, another dozen hellhounds coalesced from the ground and interposed themselves between him and the irate superhero.

Rey scattered the pack of hellhounds like bowling pins, but not fast enough to stop Edge from leaping onto one of the nearby dead trees.

Rey changed course slightly, extended his arm and caught the tree in a devastating lariat.

The brittle deadwood shattered, and the tree did not fall as much as abruptly relocate sideways. Edge somersaulted off a hellhound that leapt up to break his fall and landed in the branches of another leafless corpse-tree. The hellhounds followed, making perches of the nearby branches as they leered down at Rey. "<Is that all you got?>"

Rey hefted the fallen tree like a club.

Pouncing hellhounds fell short as he left the ground a split second before they reached him, legs flailing in midair. But Edge was already on the move before Rey brought his weapon down on the mercenary's perch, turning it into splinters.

Edge hit and bounced off another tree, guarding his rear with a backwards lash of his laser; Rey brought up his tree by reflex and it was cut in half by the beam. Ho ho ho. Rey thought gleefully. Now he had two arnis sticks. He was on home ground!

At the same time a hellhound ran up the tree and vaulted from it just in time for Edge to land on its back. Hound and rider dove at Rey, who was losing upward momentum. As they all collided the hellhound struck first, stretching its neck and snapping its spring-trap jaws around Rey's junk. Rey merely snarled and brought his legs together like a much bigger spring-trap, crushing his assailant's skull.

Then there was nothing left but the two falling, duelling figures, whirling laser blades turning desperately parrying tree-eskrima into streams of flaming ash. Rey panicked as his weapons were reduced to useless nubs much faster than he'd predicted. He knew there were very few things in the Philippines which could actually hurt him, but he never thought he'd be going up against Americans with lightsabers! He had watched the films, and he simply could not dispute the plain fact that lightsabers could cut through anything, including him.

So when the glowing blades arced towards his vulnerable body a final time, Rey lashed out blindly and caught both gunblades by the hand. It hurt, the cutting arcs hissing in vain against his palms, but it hurt less than how much his terrified self thought it would hurt.

Still, the pain was the only thing Rey's was aware of as he and his entangled opponent both hit the ground on their feet. He didn't even notice Edge's vain attempts to dislodge his weapons from Rey's fevered death-grip, until several seconds of motionless deadlock brought him out of his fear-driven trance.

"<I have you now!>" Rey shouted, part triumph, part epiphany. He flexed to wrench the mercenary's arms out of their sockets.

Edge just smirked suddenly and let go of his gunblades instead of letting his arms get wrenched out of their sockets.

Good god, the American couldn't get more annoying, Rey thought just as eight turbo-penetrator rounds slammed into his back. He squealed in pain and his hands unclenched, and before the gunblades could fall Edge rolled forward to snatch them back up and then reversed into a distance-making backflip by kicking off Rey's face.

"<Missed me?>" Chaos asked, his autoshotgunknuckles smoking.

"<As much as your mother does!>" Rey turned and snapped.

"<Oooh, lookit 'im talk smack! How pwecious!>" Chaos flexed his gun-harness thing, reloading it. "<You be flyin' out of the little league, all right.>"

"<That's what she said!>" Rey, whose English comprehension skills waved fond farewell at him as he flew out of the little league, defaulted to.

"<You've used that one already.>" Edge remarked behind him.

"<Arrrrrrggh!>" screamed Rey. "<You Americans definitely can't get more annoying!>"

"<Well,>" Edge said, stabbing him in the back. "<We can sometimes come off that way.>"

"<Speak for yourself, brobbes.>" Chaos shot Rey in the face, blasting off his trademark baseball cap. "<Third World Heroboy just can't handle the heat of gee-o-po-li-ti-cal supervillainy.>"

"<Could be that too.>" Edge speared the flying cap with a gunblade. "<But our opponent's frustration could be due to something simpler.>"

Rey leapt for his cap and missed as Edge backpedaled. He pushed forward, throwing wild, hooking grabs at his piece of signature haberdashery as Edge's blade twisted and weaved with the cap firmly skewered on it.

"<Could be...just a...symptom...of something more intrinsic!>" Edge gasped as he blurred in and out of superhuman bursts of speed, concentrating both on composing his diss and fending off the brunt of Rey's assault. "<Like...>" He was forced to cut himself off as he rolled under Rey's double-armed lunge.

"Gimme!" Rey overbalanced and steadied himself just in time to be hit by Chaos' haedlong charge. Surprise, more than the unusual strength of his body blow and the force of the eight barrels being discharged point-blank into his stomach, drove Rey back.

"<Right, thanks.>" Edge rolled to his feet. "<As I was saying, like a fundamental!>" He hacked dervish-like at Rey, who was disregarding him and picking Chaos up one-handed. "<Lack!>" Both gunblades hit and bounced off Rey's outstretched arm. "<Of competence!>" He shouted desperately.

"<Wassat?>" Rey turned and said after tossing Chaos, who was calmly reloading his shotgun knuckles, aside.

Even as he fell, Chaos twisted sideways and fired. Fire whooshed over Rey's form as the volley of micro-pyro rounds ignited; Rey shrieked as the blinding blast of heat hit him and he tried to stop, drop and roll – except in his panic he hit the ground shoulder-first like a zero-altitude meteorite. The shockwave knocked Edge off his feet and propelled Chaos into a tree.

"<Boss-person!>" Chaos rolled onto his knees and shouted into the air. "<Mook cover's gotten a bit thin here!>"

Rey was digging himself out of the miniature crater of his own making amid a growing pall of smoke. The heatproofing on his costume, done overseas and rated to withstand brief stints in burning buildings, had been compromised by the earlier laser damage; and now the costume itself had slowly, stubbornly started to burn. The torn, smouldering fibres burned alongside the plastic of the ravaged logos, little yellow and green fires glimmering amid coiling, acrid fumes.

Rey rose to his feet, a Twenty First Century Burning Man.

And to every side of him, a sudden stygian sussuration.

Edge and Chaos backed away obligingly.

Out of the shadows prowled more hellhounds than ever before, and behind their gaunt silhouettes loomed half-formed giants with burning yellow eyes, gripping dead trees and toppling them as they advanced. Under them scuttled owl-faced things on clockwork insect bodies, preening their blade-like forelimbs in hungry anticipation. Between the eerily silent footsteps of the horde scuttled great barbed centipedes, their brassy hides iridescent in the half-light.

Rey gritted his teeth.

They came. Scuttling, striding, loping things converged into a single shapeless mass of shrieking monstrousness that swept over him and swallowed him like an ocean.

Then the mass exploderated as Rey made the ocean cough him back up. With his fists.

The sheer weight of shadowy residue rolled from the melee like cloud; it clung to the inside of Rey's throat and burned as he screamed through it, punching and clawing and gouging and stomping on wriggling legs and stabbing pincers and biting jaws. The press of monsters against his body did not relent as much as he smashed and tore holes in it, but as much as it crushed Rey inwards it also bore him upward like toothpaste squeezed from a tube, and Rey managed to keep his face from being submerged under the fray.

But his rage was getting spent, and everywhere he looked he saw nothing but angry waving appendages trying to claw his eyes out. But in one direction, between the gaps in the forest of limbs and bodies, Rey could suddenly see a strange brightness in the gloaming battlefield. From its direction came an intangible wave of dark magic which swept through him, even more intense than what suffused the auras of the summoned creatures he was fighting.

Thoughts raced through Rey's already fevered mind. It clearly meant something worse was coming, and he was already doing so well against some stupid minions. The two Americans were still lurking out there somewhere, and he hadn't even laid his eyes on the ultimate big bad mastermind yet. He's got a dead president looking disappointingly at him and shady ex-mil types wagging fingers at him. If there was a single chance that he wasn't going to die horribly and embarrassingly under a pile of stupid shadow monsters...

For one instant the last withered appendix of his self-dignity seized him by the lapels and shouted at him to do something – and for once, Rey listened.

Rey took a breath – more psychological than anything – and let the swirling maelstrom of monsters sweep over him completely. Into the midst of the scratching mass he went, the weight of unthinking ferocity piled onto itself driving him down and down until his legs touched something stationary. The ground.

Rey consigned his bearings to memory and kicked downwards with all his might.

The top of the growing mound of monsters erupted like Pinatubo as Rey rocketed out of it.

The super-jump that brought him into the air was also aimed right, Rey saw. The strange brightness was coming from a soaring column of unearthly flame over that small hillock he originally spotted when he arrived; even as he flew towards it the column faded to reveal a tall, athletic apparition in its place, all clad in black.

"<It must be you!>" Rey shouted at the guy who must be the evil mastermind, cocking his fist as he closed the distance between them.

"Yesss. Me." The stranger raised a hand.

A flash of burning cold and Rey was not flying, but falling without style. He hit the ground on all fours before the darkly-clad man, whose face was manic. He dimly noticed that his own body was wreathed in blue-black flames, eating away at some part of him that he could only barely feel. He struggled to raise his head, and didn't like what he saw.

The man was taller and more athletic than the other two. No, he was more than athletic – with bodybuilders' muscles slung thick and untidy over a massive frame, full of bulges and protrusions where Rey was pretty sure no human being should have them. His hair was night-black and fringed his entire face like an ill-used mane, barely concealing impossibly sharp cheekbones. His trenchcoat and three-piece suit fit him like a glove despite his freakish morphology, as though moulded directly onto his body. Black mist swirled over his feet.

"Was it not magnificent Rey Quirino?" He declared with arms spread, even as Rey tugged his numb limbs vainly. "A performance worthy of the likes of you! The Hero of the Philippines makes his last stand even as I make him ready for his sacrifice! To me, that is. To me and me alone!" Even as Rey watched with aching eyes, the stranger's form seemed to shift and deform slightly from every passing moment, muscles and veins jostling into new configurations. "Yes. You have served me well in these last days of the law, though you know it not. Oh, how the heavens will rain black tears, and the lords of thunder hang your secret name upon their lips! They will thank you, Rey Quirino! Even as I thank you, and their thanks fade to screams as I surmount the very throne of darkness!"

"Who are...you..." Rey forced from white lips.

"Me? You ask who I am?" The stranger was trembling with barely suppressed anticipation as he strode down the hillock, individual muscles quivering. "I am the fear reflected in your eyes! I am the rats in the City of God! I am the total eclipse in the heart of all things! I am Darkness Tenebrae Ascendant, and I am no mere who!"

He was close to Rey now, and Rey still couldn't move. Behind him, he could also hear Chaos and Edge's footsteps getting closer, surrounding him. The whole dead forest was hushed, the earlier battle reflected in nothing but the vast ringing silence of its absence.

"For the part you have played in my final ascension, I will grant you the privilege of dying a peasant's death. Exult in this, Rey Quirino, for you have left your country in good hands! Your bones shall find a place of honour beneath my ziggurat to despair!"

Darkness put a hand over Rey's head, as though in benediction. His grimace was beautific. "And now, I close the seams of Stygia."

A shadow passed over the sun.

To be continued...
Last edited by Invictus on Fri Mar 09, 2012 7:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
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REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Darkness' over the top ramblings are the best.

REY JUMP
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Ford Prefect »

Suversive, perverse, deranged. One can forgive overlong infodumps where they end with 'mondo unslick repartee'.
FEEL THESE GUNS ARCHWIND THESE ARE THE GUNS OF THE FLESHY MESSIAH THE TOOLS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION THAT WILL ENACT THE LAW OF MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Malchus »

Thoughts as I read:

Chapter I

I may never, ever hear the term grimdark without exploding into guffaws and giggles again.

The crowd cheered on general principle.

This has got to be my favorite line. Even though thinking about the truth of it makes me want to weep as much as it makes me laugh.

Honasan? Gringo Honasan? Oh gods. And Rey treats him like some semiflunky. :lol:

"I...will ask around. There's been lots of counter-coups lately which means lots of ex-mil wankers looking for work, right? Ahaha."

Oh, I dunno. Those guys tend to have no problem getting a job . . . in politics. Damn you, Philippine electorate . . .


Chapter II

Built-in prostate massager? How would that even--

You know what? Not gonna pursue that train of thought.

Continuity! That's great. Fatty nerdsEveryone loves continuity.

"Save us!" And Rey looked down and said "Sure." and rubbed his thumb and forefingers together.

Best iteration of that line. Ever.

Also? I am shipping ReyXLuiz. I know you want me to.

Local government deforestates everything in the vicinity of Cebu, sells some to SCANDIKEA, and replaces the devastation with imported plastic trees? Sounds about right.

Depleted uranium buckshot. What, does the Comix-verse have armored reindeer? Also, why can't more gun accessories be Bluetooth? Real life is LAEM.

Uh oh. Middle name (or second half of the given name in Filipino naming tradition. The actual middle name would be the mother's maiden name). Shit's getting serious.

:lol: :lol: :lol: CORY? Seriously? And I thought Gringo was a hoot. Dear gods, Vic, I love you.

Man. This story is just . . . I can't even describe it. Damn, that was the best laugh I've had all week. Gonna leave chapter 3 for tomorrow since I need to wake up early, but damn, man, this is an utterly batty story.
Ford Prefect wrote:Can you just imagine this story as penciled by Greg Land? Actually don't, it is too horrifying.
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

I'm imagining, since Honasan was special forces paradropping into combat with a live python wrapped around his waist and shooting commie and Muslim insurgents in the face, that he could've been one of those NATO/SEATO/US-allied recipients of some kind of Soldier Serum.

Holy crap. Maybe since the modern Philippine military is too dirt poor to buy new US Soldier Serums, they have to rely on blood extracts from Gringo Honasan, imbibing the latest generation of Philippine special forces and scout rangers with Honasan's superior genes, giving them some kind of subconscious kinship with him. Explaining his uncanny ability to inspire all sorts of military guys to join his coups. :lol:
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Invictus »

Malchus wrote:Oh, I dunno. Those guys tend to have no problem getting a job . . . in politics. Damn you, Philippine electorate . . .
I wrote that part before Shroom drew my attention to the membership of the Philippine legislature. :P Ex-officers, washed-up actors, dictators' sons! Oh my. Though I really meant the more footsoldier-y participants of all those coups - I don't imagine the Philippines Army keeps them around, and there are only so many senate seats that need filling.
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
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REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Invictus »

Previously, on Si Rey Quirino Laban sa Masamang Puso ng Pilipinas...

Darkness put a hand over Rey's head, as though in benediction. His grimace was beautific. "And now, I close the seams of Stygia."

A shadow passed over the sun.


Rey lay transfixed by a spear of orange ice. His body was a map of frozen veins, an atlas scribed in pain, impossibly sharp, impossibly bright. He hung within himself, blood and cell and mind suspended in a moment of timelessness that echoed into infinity. Everything was ice. Everything was light.

In that timeless instant Rey's consciousness became a thing of crystal, branching and diffusing and suffusing down into his mortal flesh, burrowing past dreams and memories and into something older and deeper than himself. Into this unbeholden space Rey descended, riding the frozen flash of nerve and vein. In that single instant of illumination Rey was something that stretched unto infinitude, of past and present concomitant, of black blood spilt on loam and foul deeds to be done, all resonating in the same transcendent note of fearful agony.

But that dark space also touched Rey, and recoiled.

In symmetry or in sympathy, the light that was Rey shrunk back; the whole monstrously beautiful suspended tableau of veins and roots and impressions folding and collapsing back into a body, a human being; and before Rey could realize it eternity had ceased and continuity had resumed, and his consciousness drifted back into the world, from which drifted a long, discordant scream.

He was still lying there, on the floor of the dead forest. He realized that the screaming wasn't coming from his throat, though judging from its soreness it might as well have been. The pressure of the half-frosted, half-charred earth on his body as he shifted also made him realize that the numbing, burning cold Darkness had inflicted on him was gone, replaced by an all-encompassing exhaustion.

Some part of him also felt a bit of smugness as his returning super-senses informed him that Darkness was the one doing the screaming.

Darkness wasn't even looking at him any more. His fervency was now born of panic as he fixated on the brightening sky, his square mouth open in an endless screech of frustration. Edge and Chaos both looked alarmed, guns ready and eyes flitting between Rey and their employer.

Eventually Darkness stopped screaming to start cursing. "Coward!" He howled at the heavens. "Oathbreaker! Abomination! Thirteenth son of a mongrel dog! Do not meddle in what you cannot comprehend!"

So the obviously unstable bad guy has had a breakdown, gone completely loco. Kinda lucky for it to happen right before whatever coup de grace he was planning. Though really, if luck wasn't on the good guy's side, where else would it be? It was just the kind of thing that Rey expected to happen. He's seen those films, too.

Rey was racking his brains on which exact film he should be thanking when Darkness suddenly threw open his arms, sending a nimbus of dark energy to crackle about him. "Fire, you fools!" He was shouting. "Shoot him down!"

Lasers whined and bullets cracked. Peering, Rey looked for what the goons were shooting at until he saw it as well.

It looked like a semi-solid figure shrouded in some kind of colourless cloak, ragged edges fluttering as it swooped like a phantom over Rey and the trio. The thing jerked and slowed by fractions as Edge and Chaos' fire hit it, but didn't seem particularly damaged. Instead it started to swirl and draw itself together, growing darker and more solid. Then without warning, twin muzzle flashes bloomed from its depths.

Edge and Chaos dived for cover, but the retaliatory fire was for Darkness. The nimbus around the demon erupted as the strange gunshots hit home, hissing and burning like wet sodium. But Darkness stood fast. Gobbets of black fire leapt from his hands like eager carnivores, leaving trails of smoke as they streaked after the errant spectre. But muzzle flashes bloomed yellow again and again from the cloak, a sparkling constellation among the twisting trails of darkness, and no fireball touched the flying figure before they exploded in sooty flak. The dead forest danced with photo-negative parodies of shadows and stranger things as waves of supernatural darkness rose at Darkness' command and broke against the cold light the intruder wielded, and the two seemed to stalemate each other in the contest of power even as the latter swooped and danced closer and closer.

And then it was over as the figure landed lightly between Rey and Darkness, its spectral cloak dissolving away. Rey pulled himself up to look at the newcomer...and blinked.

Now, Rey Quirino was a well-travelled man of the world. Why, he'd been out of the country, reclining in the beaches of Phuket and tasting the fleshpots of Macao. He has even witnessed those beauty pageant contests all over the country, full of gays strutting about with nothing but bikinis on. But what this man (woman?) was wearing was completely beyond Rey's imagination. It blew his mind. The things he (she?) does with the belts! The uncanny glow on his (her?) skin! All that strategically placed leather and lace...

Then the newcomer, hefting an elaborately engraved handgun in each gloved hand, briefly turned and nailed Rey with a gaze that seemed to drill through his blindfold. A vague ache flashed behind Rey's eyes.

"<Stay close to me. Stay inside my aura!>" He said in a definitely masculine kind of voice, and focused his attention back on Darkness.

Darkness fumed visibly. Smoke wafted from his very form and his visage shifted and flickered like shadows in firelight. "Deadlight Hollow! Do not presume to interrupt my moment of triumph!"

"<You'll not take another life today, Darkness.>" The androgynous gunslinger retorted coolly. "<In fact, your twisted quest ends here, whatever it may be.>"

"Bah! You hound me like a particularly persistent dog!" Darkness spat. "Is there no end to your impertinence?"

"<Not as long as our paths continue to cross, demon. I've a fair idea of what you're up to in this country and I will not let you succeed. Not as long as the world turns.>"

Edge and Chaos emerged from their laylow and sidled up to their employer as they stood off.

Chaos cleared his throat. "<Hey boss-person, you never mentioned this guy in your briefing.>"

Darkness' eye twitched in irritation. "A gnat in my grand schemes, albeit a persistent one. Nothing but a piece of supernatural flotsam that will be swept aside along with the ruins of the world when I reshape it to my liking after my final ascension!"

"<He's in the way of your final ascension right now, though. Presumably.>" Edge added.

Chaos gestured hastily with his shotgun-clad arm. "<However this guy is clearly magic, and we can't say that magic is one of our what do you call them again, core competencies. Now we're not trying to bilk you, but we'll have to ask for a little extra for any kind of respectable scrap we're gonna have in your behalf against this fella. Right, browley?>"

"<Right.>" Edge said, adding his mercenary-y authority.

Darkness glared at his flunkies and back at the impassive Deadlight Hollow, his face a mask of fury. His unrestrained nimbus boiled over the ground like smog, swallowing the trees and the ground save for a little circle of lightness around Rey and his protector. And the smog seemed alive – everywhere vague and ominous shapes danced inside it, as though a whole shadow world was struggling to come into being.

But then something happened on Darkness' face – Rey never thought he would be horrified by how many teeth he could see in someone's mouth, but further horror descended upon him when he realized that Darkness was supposed to be grinning.

"Ah. How I forget the urgings of my devil-nature." Darkness began softly. "How I repugnate the shackles that worm under my flesh. Yes the world turns, Deadlight Hollow, but you are too blind to see that it is night that descends around you! Your petty blasphemies will come to nothing beneath the light of the dying sun!" Then Darkness cackled, and the dance of his all-encompassing aura started to boil to a febrile pandemonium. Edge and Chaos regarded at the swirling and gibbering around them with increasing unease, while Deadlight Hollow tensed, the glow on his skin even brighter.

"<Not quite as planned...>" He was murmuring as the superhero behind him struggled to his feet.

"<What's going on?>" Rey said blearily.

Deadlight Hollow's head snapped around, empty eyes widening in surprise. But just as quickly, they narrowed in understanding. "<...So you're the one.>"

"<Who?>"

"<Rey Quirino...>" Deadlight Hollow began hastily.

"<Yeah, that's me.>" Rey thought about striking his iconic pose to aid recognition, but neither his arms nor his legs seemed up for it.

"<Yes I know that.>" Deadlight Hollow continued impatiently. "<Are you ready to go along with the risky plan of a total stranger?>"

Rey stared back at him. "<Are you hitting on me?>"

Deadlight Hollow paused, amidst the howling twilight. "<What?>"

"...You thought it inconceivable? You thought it impossible? I spit upon the impossible! In fact, I spit upon all things!" Darkness was sneering. "You are a witless impediment churned up by an obstinate world, another one of the countless briars and thorns I must trample upon in my unholy quest! But now I no longer need to grope and bleed! I shall prove my rightful dominion over your mewling cries of defiance!" The nimbus that cloaked the demon was almost solid now, from which tentacles flailed and grasped at everything in reach. Excess power streamed from his back, forming the vague impression of voidy wings.

Darkness cast an imperious claw skyward. "Keepers of heaven's cage, send forth your brightest star! Let these impudent mortals read their fate!"

The heavens tore. A hurricane wind bent the dead trees at the waist even as the susurration in the omnipresent shadows rose to a shriek. All eyes were cast upwards at the unearthly light that bled from the gap in the stormy sky, illuminating the void beyond.

But the void was not empty. Looming larger and larger from the depthless space was a whole planetoid, green cyanide streams outgassing from its scarred surface.

"Now do you understand?" Darkness crowed. "I have alighted upon the gates of bone! I have made the lunatic sacrament! I have reaped far more than the required toll of souls on this wretched earth! And in return, I have prevailed. I have prevailed upon this land to yield me its beating heart! The locus of evil which now lies only a mere step from my grasp! I hear its voice now, clearer than ever! I feel its power, begging to offer itself! And this! This is but a fraction of my promised reward, my true sovereignty! Yes...What?" He snarled at Chaos who was waving frantically at him from some distance away.

"<Like we were trying to get your attention for the last minute or so!>" Chaos shouted through his comms as the meteor in the rift loomed larger and larger. "<You okay with us taking a breather since you obviously don't need any help finishing off these losers?>"

"<It being a rather urgent request,>" Edge added, hopping from foot to foot as the hellish mist ate at his shoes, "<What with the battlespace rapidly becoming intolerable to us non-demon combatants.>"

"You dare interrupt my pavane of triumph to plead for your lives?!" Darkness snapped.

"<Let's not have these small moments spoil what might be a productive future working relationship, eh?>" Chaos gulped reflexively as his ears popped from the mounting overpressure. "<Circumstances permitting, that is.>"

"<I mean man,>" Rey pressed on as the mercenaries negotiated their withdrawal. "<I'm not gay and I'm not too familiar with the way of you gays, but I'm sure you were hitting on me and I'm finding it in-appro-pri-ate, okay?>"

Deadlight Hollow's aura was now a scintillating circle of orange, yellow and green, struggling to burn away the triumphant dark. "<I...wasn't doing that!>"

"<Don't try your gay guilt powers on me! I wasn't sleeping during those workshops!>" Rey felt himself on firmer ground. "<Hell, I'll introduce you to my personal assistant and you guys can hit it off if you like! I'm fairly sure he's gay too! And single! That's how gays work, right?>"

"<Rey Quirino! I'm trying hard to keep both of us alive here and I'd rather you not turn this into a discussion of my courtship prospects!>"

"<Aha!>" Rey said loudly. "<So you are single!>"

"<And very soon dead!>" Deadlight Hollow snapped back. "<See that falling meteor? It won't kill us all perhaps only if you'd stop yammering!>"

"<That? I reckoned I could take that.>" Rey thumped his chest weakly. "<Invulnerability, you know.>"

"<I saw you laid out like a full English breakfast by a single bolt of Darkness' coldfire! It's magic, Rey Quirino. And now he's sending a whole meteorful of it at us. You'll still be taking your chances?>" It was getting painful to look directly at Deadlight Hollow's skin, and notes of cyan were creeping into his aura.

Rey averted his eyes in a manful, not-backing-down-at-all manner. "<Fine! Make yourself the magic expert! So what do?>"

"...Of course. I do forget the creatures who scurry beneath my tread. Respite should sometimes be...judiciously applied to lesser technicals in these grand plays." Darkness was proclaiming, his arms aloft like a busy conductor's. "And I may have use for you two yet. So go! Preserve your fragile flesh against the inveteracy of my wrath! Enjoy the transient reprieve that is the rest of your mortal lives! Watch from the perch of your choice as the beast of the apocalypse spills the lamp of fiery wrath over the entire world!"

"<Yeah we'll do that.>" Chaos edged backward until he bumped into his demon bike, which was waiting patiently behind him. He threw himself onto it gratefully and twisted the throttle; it bore him away. Edge did something similar.

"Go!" Darkness urged. He turned back to his opponents and his expression re-twisted into mania. "Go. I will brook no more interruptions to my final ascension."

An ear-shattering boom almost flattened the dead forest as the descending planetoid emerged from the rift and struck the atmosphere proper. The unearthly wreath of light that bathed the meteor as it passed through the glowing wound in the sky was joined by a fiery incandescence.

"<...That's your plan?>" Rey demanded inside Deadlight Hollow's failing protective bubble.

"<I don't believe you can come up with any better.>" Deadlight Hollow said intensely. "<Our mutual foe's power lies beyond my ability to counter, much less your ability to survive! But with this, there's a chance that both of us won't be spread like marmalade over a crater! So what have you to lose?>"

"This still sounds a lot like a solicitation to me." Rey muttered to himself. "<But sure, let's roll, fellow superhero!>"

The dead trees were melting, rendered down to tarry porridge by the sheer pressure of the descent. The air was almost opaque with mad shapes scribbled in gradations of black, streaked through with trails sketched by dirt and gravel rising in defiance of gravity. The only illumination was from the oppressive, soupy glow from the meteor above, and the shifting lights put out by Deadlight Hollow's aura.

"<I know you're over-extending yourself, Darkness! You still haven't managed to get what you've come here for!>" Deadlight Hollow shouted. "<You can't be pulling this off without burning yourself! You still don't have the kind of power to break the world!>

He raised his handguns and fired into the heart of the storm.

The Deadlights-empowered bullets glimmered like foxfire. They parted the noxious night before them and for an instant, Rey could see the grotesque, squirming figure of Darkness before the bullets extinguished themselves in muffled explosions against his body, and the brief channel of illumination closed again.

"<No more ablative aura. Good.>" Deadlight Hollow said quietly, and fired again.

Another streak, and another glimpse of Darkness, arms locked in unholy hail-mary. His mouth was a bottomless pit, and black pitch bubbled from his eyes. The bullets had put holes in him, festering and writhing with tadpoles of discombobulated flesh. But still he stood, and still the meteor fell.

"Do not seek to test me!" He howled. "Do not seek to raise yourself up as another worthy adversary! Or there shall be no place for you in this world or any other! There shall be no peace for you in this life or any other!"

"<Your threats have no power on me!>" Deadlight Hollow yelled at the top of his voice. He was caught in his own rictus, limbs locked in the effort of nullifying the hell that raged inches from his skin. But his flashing handguns were already pointed at Darkness' similarly immobile figure. "<The one you have to kill is still standing right behind me! You can't complete your ritual without his lifeblood! And you have no hold over anything between heaven and the deep until your absurd ritual is done!>"

"DO NOT PRESUME TO KNOW MY GAME, YOU CRIPPLED APOSTATE! I have dissected the souls of blind prophets in minutiae, and you are no blind prophet! That is no forewarning of my quest that you hold, and you are only fit to lament that your blind blunderings have interfered with my plans at such an inopportune moment! For that, there can be no grace reserved for you!" Darkness was riddled with holes and rocking from explosions, but for a moment his imprecatories overpowered even the pre-apocalyptic din.

"I sicken of pretentious buffoons that swarm the woodwork of destiny, wallowing in their shallow games without a single taste of the rich heart of the tree! I tire of mites like you who impose your worn carcasses before my progress as though you have a single inkling of what you can hope to achieve! I will scour the stains of your consequence from this putrid world! Prepare to have every last trace of yourselves obliterated by the imposition of my consequence, the consequence of my true wrath aroused! PREPARE TO BECOME NOTHING AT ALL!"

On cue, the gathering momentum of the falling meteor driving the atmosphere before it reached some critical threshold; the air ignited. Deadlight Hollow screamed in pain as some aspect of his protective ward gave way and Rey screamed in fright at the sudden, searing wall of flame that surrounded them.

"<PLAN B!"> Deadlight Hollow yelled hoarsely and grabbed Rey in a tight embrace.

Jesus-fucking-Christ, Rey thought vaguely. He wants some kind of pre-death final makeout confession. Like in those films.

There came the feared fleshy pressings that Rey was trying very hard not to think about, but there was also a sudden, intense sensation of spinning, and even more suddenly the inferno was replaced by featureless, colourless fabric.

Then the orange ice came again, and Rey blacked out.

To be continued...
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
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Shroom Man 777
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

God, this is the greatest. And Deadlight Hollow, what a guy. :D

(Rey, you complete idiot!)
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"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Ford Prefect »

If you can make Darkness' dialogue any more ridiculous, I will be honestly pretty shocked.
FEEL THESE GUNS ARCHWIND THESE ARE THE GUNS OF THE FLESHY MESSIAH THE TOOLS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION THAT WILL ENACT THE LAW OF MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Invictus »

Again Rey Quirino plunged through the conduits of pain and light, an alien plant in the soil of testament. The roots grasped in vain, for their substance was poison; however much he was thirsty for understanding, all the roots touched were echoes of its own agony, base truths rendered in a code too crude and too disjointed to read.

But the basic building blocks of the unknown message were still laid out in front of Rey, repeating and tumbling into infinity – of sharp, neat flashes of pain, of a million hands grasping, of the stench of sulphur...

Not enough to tell a story, but enough to overwhelm Rey in that eternal instant, laid out as he was in a million tendrils of crystal light, stretched over the aching peak of a frozen frequency.

But the high note could not hold, and again the timeless moment receded. Rey became aware that he was back in the normal world when the shockwave of the meteor's impact hit him like an unreasonably large but unexpectedly soft hammer.

Rey opened his eyes and discovered that he was propped up against a tree in some completely different place, evinced by the fact that the tree he was propped up against looked fairly alive and un-liquefied.

"<Where...>"

"<I took us as far as I'd dared.>" Deadlight Hollow pulled him to his feet by his arms. "<I couldn't be certain of your condition.>"

"<I feel fine thank you very much for asking.>" Rey brusquely sprung up straight and brushed off the gunslinger's hands. Immediately, his vision blackened as blood rushed from his head and he fell back heavily against the tree trunk.

Deadlight Hollow stood back and regarded Rey like an entomologist would a fascinating specimen. "<Hmm.>"

Gradually the pounding of blood in Rey's head died down, clearing the way for Rey to become more intimately acquainted with all the various burns and bruises from that horrible clusterfuck of a fight. He didn't remember getting actual injuries – apart from that weird voodoo shit the giant ranting guy put on him – thanks to his metahuman toughness, but he had to conclude that he was pretty dinged up. God, this wasn't like in those films where there was a single bleeding shoulder wound he could sorta manfully bear. All these little aches and pains and general tiredness felt so...petty. The sudden thought bothered Rey so much, he considered trying to call Cory on the dead president-o-phone for that luxury shower service again.

But then maybe not, considering how it went down last time.

Miracles, Rey decided, have to be a sometimes thing.

"<You're holding up surprisingly well enough.>" Deadlight Hollow, looking surprisingly young in the better light, said to him. "<I may as well tell you what I know about this 'shindig'.>"

"<Yeah, what with you guys?>" Rey snapped. "<I've got dead president ghosts telling me that I need to defeat this evil demon guy to save the country, but then you came out of nowhere to fight him as well. Are you and that dark demon guy like the original pair of...what do you call those superhero/supervillain relationships in America? Worst enemies? You know that whole 'I am irrationally compelled to destroy him before I take over the world' dealie?>"

"<Alas, that it were. This affair is something I have unwisely chosen to meddle in, though that is not to say that it does not concern the souls of millions and is worth meddling in for that sake alone. Any personal grievance I hold is with, hmph, someone else entirely. However, it seems you've already grasped some small part of it. Darkness was coming for you.>" Deadlight Hollow rubbed his shapely chin. "<The word is 'nemeses', by the way.>"

Rey's eyes bulged. "<He's my nemesis? But we've never met before! I'm not even gay!>"

"<The demon that calls itself Darkness is not the most rational of supernatural entities.>" Deadlight Hollow admitted. "<But yes, it has sought you out as a target. I must say, I have heard of you in passing but I didn't think your...fame would put you into such a position...>"

Rey inflated slightly. "<Still, I'm that cool, huh!>"

"<No...>" Deadlight Hollow said, half to himself, "<That would be skipping an important step. Darkness has more accurately chosen your country as a target for his nefarious plans. As a consequence, I can only conclude that your country has chosen you as a...champion of sorts.>"

"<Well duh I didn't need you to tell me that!>" Rey was feeling better by the moment. "<The Philippines embraced me as its hero like ages ago! Though,>" He said conspiratorially, "<I have to say never get tired of people telling me this!>"

Deadlight Hollow smirked, not entirely without humour. "<But only now, it seems, does it mean something for the country itself.>"

Rey's suspicions rose. Was the crossdressing kid trying to lecture to him about responsibility and all that crap? He decided to err on the safe side and launch a pre-emptive defence. "<Yeah whatever, Mr. Not-As-Famous-As-I-Am. I bet you don't even have a personal assistant to remember other people's names for you.>"

"<Neither Darkness nor I are here to challenge your fame, Rey Quirino.>" Deadlight Hollow said patiently. "<In fact, Darkness is after something that's a lot more dear to its heart – power over the your very country, and all its suppressed mystic potential. His confrontation with you was more of a...sideshow. And from what I can glean from the creature's behavior, it's a sideshow it's willing to forgo if it becomes too inconvenient.>"

There was a crash as Rey knocked down the tree he had been leaning on. "<Nobody takes Rey Quirino as a sideshow!>"

"<That's the spirit.>" Deadlight Hollow muttered to himself.

"<What? Why are you speaking so softly? Is that also a gay thing?>"

Deadlight Hollow sighed in irritation. "<Accepting for the briefest conjectural moment that it is...>"

"<I knew it!>"

"<...then you need to listen to this, Rey Quirino! You have to understand that your country holds a dark source of power that lies fallow in its heart! I'm yet uncertain how Darkness plans to gain control over it, but it is already able to tap into some limited amount of it! You've already seen even what that limited amount of power can do, and I don't think there's anyone in your country who desires the power to be fully monopolized, let alone by a creature of Darkness' predilections.>"

Rey nodded to himself, despite wanting not to. He did get thoroughly shown up and ass kicked by the Darkness guy. His performance against the two other shitpieces wasn't exactly great either, he had to admit. Not to mention that meteor, which was actually pretty terrifying back then but like no way was he going to to freak out before the pansy guy did, which in the end happened to neither of them so it was more of a draw, but still...

He felt more ashamed than he had ever realized. He wasn't just doing it for the country, no, even though that was where he kept all his adoring fans. He was doing this for himself. It was for what they had forced him to go through. What they had made him think about himself.

"<But you, Rey Quirino, are also tapping into some kind of power that emanates from your country.>"

"<I am?>" Rey stared at his dirty hands. "<So you mean my whole superhero career is because I'm some sort of chosen one?>"

"<Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.>" Deadlight Hollow had that little shadow of a smirk on his face again. "<You metahuman powers are natural in cause, as far as metahuman powers can be described as 'natural'. But there's something else that's helping you and protecting you, and it's coming from outside of you...>"

"<Speaking of that, I got visited by Cory's ghost.>" Rey interrupted. "<Oh right, you probably don't know her. She's a dead president. Kind of naggy.>"

"<Hmm, yes. Catholic-style intercession, I hadn't considered other forms of manifestation in this cultural context...but no, I'm referring to this.>" Deadlight Hollow held out a hand. "<Look.>"

Orange-yellow lights danced briefly in his hand, leaving aching after-images in Rey's eyes.

"<Uh, neat. So?>"

"<My powers, on the other hand, cannot be described as 'natural'.>" Deadlight Hollow explained, in a voice that was a little flatter than usual. "<It however lets me combat the wiles of demons quite effectively, and you should be thankful for that, since this power let me extinguish the curse of coldfire that Darkness overcame you with.>"

"<Huh, you did that...>" Rey sought and failed to find the word to describe that trippy experience he's had twice now. "<...thing? Could have made it hurt less, you know...>" Then Rey caught the sudden severe expression on his rescuer's face. "<...Buuut I was kind of hurting anyway so good job, I guess.>"

"<To be honest, I didn't entirely expect you to survive the exorcism.>" Deadlight Hollow ignored Rey's expression of outrage. "<My power is anathema to demons, but frankly, it is also to anyone with powers of most sorts. To have recovered as quickly as you have from the level of exposure to the Deadlights I gave you, both from the initial exorcism and from transporting you here through the deadways, you have been...blessed, in a way.>"

"<I don't think I followed what you just said, but I like the sound of being blessed.>" Rey said brightly. He looked around the totally unfamiliar-looking forest with all the muck and stuff. "<Where are we, by the way?>"

"<I don't know. My deadways do not provide...useful references to the material world.>" Deadlight Hollow nodded his head at the direction from which the attenuated shockwave came. "<But we moved far enough to avoid the worst from Darkness' summoning, and that's satisfactory for now.>"

"<We're lost!>" Rey exclaimed in panic.

"<That is a valid albeit unproductive way of putting it, yes.>"

"<My phone! I'll call my assistant!>" Rey's hands went to his pockets again, but he stopped dead as soon as his fingers touched the surface of his ruined, half-melted costume. "<Fuck. It's probably blown up anyway. I really need to think of better ways to carry my phone.>"

"<There's probably no signal out here anyway.>" Deadlight Hollow, with a little flourish, produced a compact satellite phone set from somewhere on his salacious outfit and unfolded it. "<Please get in touch with your people and reacquire our bearings, if you will. I don't like how far Darkness' plan seems to have progressed and we need to be able to move to a position to stop it.>"

Rey gingerly picked the handset out of Deadlight Hollow's hand.

"<And the number?>" The gunslinger said patiently.

Rey froze. Oh god. Not his phone. No speed-dial. Luiz's number.

Some demon shit was going to eat the Philippines while he was hopelessly lost in a forest because he couldn't remember his personal assistant’s phone number.

"<I already know the country code.>" Deadlight Hollow hinted unhelpfully.

"<Great! Punch that in.>" Rey snapped. "<I'm, er, still a bit dizzy. Right.>" He rubbed his temples with a jolly theatricality. "<It's coming to me.>"

"<Huh, they wouldn't really be able to locate us over the phone, can they...>" Deadlight Hollow was suddenly musing.

And Luiz had told him his number so many times! It was practically Rey's official contact number! It should be rattling around in his brain somewhere-

Deadlight Hollow blurred and was suddenly standing on top of a tree. "<Hey, I see smoke.>" He called.

No! No dice! Rey resisted the urge to freak out. The fate of the country on his shoulders for once and in a horribly authentic all-hell-breaking-loose way and he's failing! He must be the hero! He must be the hero or they'll all start laughing at him. Wait, actually they won't start laughing at him because they'll all be dead or something, but that realization brought surprisingly little comfort.

"<Never mind.>" The voice was calling down. "<It's from the impact crater. I thought it was from the slums around here and we could ask for directions and perhaps find willing transportation.>"

But there was one hope that Rey dared not hope. His trembling fingers went over what's left of his costume again, groping for pockets torn or seared shut. It was hope against hope, but Rey was at the stage where he would lick the meanest crumbs of opportunity from fate's plate.

His exploratory fingers touched a pliant edge. Rey's heart soared.

"<Yes!>" He shouted as he pulled out his own calling card.

"<You got it?>" Deadlight Hollow inquired from above.

"<Yes! I have...oh.>" Rey felt a plunging sensation inside him when he inspected what used to be a stylishly designed calling card he handed out to important people and, most importantly, had his contact phone number – Luiz's number – printed on it. It was rather charred.

No, wait, half of it was still readable. Rey squinted at the card with his super-vision, willing himself to pick something out of the blackened surface. There must be something on it his memory could use, some sort of hook, some kind of hint...

...and there it was.

"<Mr. Whatsyourname. Please dial this number.>" Rey looked up and said, his voice catching only slightly.

Deadlight Hollow blinked down from the tree. "<Are you sure this helps? Unless there's some kind of GPS tracker on the other end...>"

"<Just, don't take this one thing away from me, alright?>" The gunslinger was taken aback by Rey's tone, as though he was suddenly on the verge of tears. "<Just, please, call the number for me.>"

"<Ah-very well.> Deadlight Hollow set to work and got his gizmo working, collapsible dish and all, in a jiffy. "<The line's open.>"

This was the moment of truth. It would be the one where Rey Quirino either makes the grade or be reduced to a laughingstock forever and they'll all be laughing at him even as they're all dying horribly.

"Hello?" Came Luiz's voice, sounding worried.

"It's Rey!" Rey exploded. "It's me. I'm using someone else's phone I went to have that showdown as I said after breakfast and..."

"Rey! Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm good. The bad guy, er, got away though. Look, I need a bit of help because we're in this forest somewhere and I have no idea where anything on Cebu is-"

"I can help with that." A new voice cut in, rough and cold as stone.

"Hey! Who are you and why are you butting into this conversation?" Rey jerked the handset away from his face and regarded it suspiciously.

"I am your old friend Gringo Honasan. We have spoke. Surely you remember."

"Oh, you're that senator who interrupted my epic burger tour." Rey thought a bit more. "Oh, and warned me about the guy and those two other guys. Ahem, your warning was well received! But I kind of got my official warning service bumped up to dead president ghosts now. Sorry."

"You have started to put the picture together. I see that congratulations are in order. Only hypothetically speaking, of course, as I gather that your battle with the usurper did not go well." Came the senator's voice.

"Well he was cheating! He was using magic and every-wait, why are you on the line?" Rey demanded. "This is a private conversation!"

"This is a national emergency, if you recall me telling you. I had merely taken the precaution of touching base with your personal entourage, and saw fit to use this opportunity to...no, no. I know how you will protest. Your personal assistant is standing right next to me. He is quite safe, if rather conniptious over your well-being." Honasan paused. "And can I ask whose satellite phone you're using?"

"Uh, hang on." Rey gingerly tossed the handset to an expectant Deadlight Hollow. "<I'm Deadlight Hollow, freelance demon hunter. Yes, he's in good condition, as good as can be asked for. Yes, I'd like to offer my assistance in the matter of your country...I see. I understand if certain secrets cannot be divulged, but this makes things a lot smoother. Also, he claims intercession and is showing signs of the champion, if you understand...Yes, I can verify this with some certainty, as with Darkness' role...Well, senator, one cannot always pick one's fights...I sympathize. I truly do. But I recognize that Darkness is a plague that must be destroyed, and I will demur from making any judgements...These terms are acceptable. I take it that Darkness has been moving quickly and corresponding haste is required on our front. How shall we rendezvous? I can bring up MapQuest from...follow the helicopter? Very well. Watch for the grey blob.>" Deadlight Hollow severed the connection.

"<Oh, you sorted everything out? That was pretty-hey, I was talking!>" But the phone apparatus had been packed up and tucked away before Rey could protest any further.

"<We need to hurry.>" Deadlight Hollow said, flush with fresh purpose. "<How did you find your way to the site of the sac-the place where Darkness was in the first place?>"

"<Well I jumped around. Cory just told me which direction to jump, you know?>" Rey made a few experimental hops that put Rey-shaped holes through the forest canopy. He still felt a bit tired, but things were looking up and he finally had a victory under his belt. "<Super-jumps, you know?>"

Deadlight Hollow's brow furrowed. "<But you can't detect the presence of your guide now?>"

Rey brushed some bugs out of his hair and concentrated. He couched thoughts to a Cory-shaped hole in his mind, which elicited no response. With some well-founded trepidation, he tried to imagine the image of a big white dead-president-o-phone dialling Cory's number. He then realized that he didn't know Cory's number.

"<Uh, she's unavailable, I think. She's got like her own schedule, you know? Busy sainting around except she's not really a saint, more of a regular ghost I think. But like a good ghost though, that does good hauntings. My point is...Jesus Christ, why doesn't she have the time for me too?> Rey slid down and buried his face in his hands, leaving a trail of moss on his back. He just had to blaze through the first test just to fail the next, hadn't he? "<Why am I being lost in a goddamn jungle in the middle of an epic quest? Why can't I get help with these things? Am I really supposed to just go save the Philippines?>"

He could tell that Deadlight Hollow was looking down at him; he was just glad that he couldn't see his expression.

"<Oh come now, why despair when you can sit up and smell the oil on the metaphysical gears that has you by the drawstrings?>" Deadlight Hollow's tone was dry. "<Let's not be so undignified as to be dragged down the conveyor belt of fate underwear first, shall we? Even a minimal bit of flair can add immeasurably to the final tally in such, ah, metaphysical conflicts, and flair is one thing you're not lacking in.>"

Rey felt a light touch on his arm. "<But I shan't bring your hopes up too much. It is expected for a hero to suffer a certain degree of adversity before his triumph. Or he is hardly worthy of the name, no?>"

But Rey was too busy hosting his own private pity party to listen. "<...be a hero, huh...>" He moped into his folded arms. "<And I was just going to get this over with so I can get on with my burger tour...>"

"<Burger tour?>" Deadlight Hollow tried for sympathy, which is to say he tried to locate some. "<It must have been important to you.>"

"VaticanBurger...was a joke...like me!" Rey started to rant. "With great power comes great appetite! That what I said. That's what I said when I ate...I showed them all. I ate them all. Ha!" He reached into his pocket and dug out a tiny blob of pink-and-brown plastic, recognizable only by its comical snout. "<Here.>"

"<Pardon?>" Deadlight Hollow stared at the proffered...item.

"<You can be the Hero of the Philippines now.>" Rey was suddenly manic, reddened eyes a-glint. "<You can handle the Darkness stuff since it's like you already know everything about it, right? I'll just go back to the adversity of stuffing my face and shitting my pants. That's my kind of work, anyway. It's what real heroes of the Philippines do! Eat burgers and shit pants. Oh, and sanctify myself with bacon grease. Heh. Oh, do you know this one?>" Rey dropped the blob and started to wipe his own face vigorously with both hands, reconfiguring the smears of soot and melted plastic around his lips. "<Break your Friday fast with a baptism of wholesome deliciousness!TM Mm-mm. Buy two Double Ichthy-o Sandwiches and get five potato wedges for free!>"

"<I'm not sure what you're saying, but I'd rather you didn't say it all the same.>" Deadlight Hollow backed away slightly.

"<That's al-alright. I-I forgive you.>" Rey stuttered in the manner of a geriatric pontiff. "<And so do Ah!>" He drawled in his best impression of a Jesus from Texas. "<For even the son of God cannot resist the temptation of the amazing deals at VaticanBurger! VaticanBurger, ah...>" Rey started warbling in a cracked falsetto. "<VaticanBurger, ah...fast food you'll never deny...VaticanBurger, ah, VaticanBurger, ah...the most divine fast food under the sky->Arghhh!" Rey screamed like a somewhat more authentic choirboy as a wave of shocking cold cut through his being.

"<I hope that's all the petulance let out of your system.>" Deadlight Hollow snarled, outstretched hand glowing with orange light. "<For I have patience for not very much of it. Your country has given you everything you need to fight the upcoming battle, Rey Quirino. You don't get to give up.>" Burning hands seized Rey's collar with a lanky violence. "<You don't get to squander your gifts and make a fool of yourself. You don't get to foist your job on someone else because you're the one they want and you're the one they need.>"

Then Deadlight Hollow was stepping back from Rey, a parting glare seared into Rey's head despite the lack of glowering eyes. "<That's why this country even kept you around for. That's...look, you've probably been having an easy time of it with the sponsorship deals and the adoring crowds and so forth, and you can go back to it after all this is over, comprendre? But just for this confrontation, you need to and I'm resorting to very colloquial words here, step up. That's all I need from you and I don't think that stern senator fellow also asks for anything more either.>"

Rey blinked slowly, his mind still ringing with Deadlight Hollow's words.

Deadlight Hollow took a deep breath and hunched down to Rey's level. "<Do you know why I'm doing this? Why I, a mere passing magus, want to help you save your country?>"

Eventually, Rey raised his head. "<Why?>"

Deadlight Hollow stood up straight again, and the colourless cloak swirled briefly over his arm.

A small, charred bone hit the grass with a damp rustle. Rey's legs twitched away from the sound.

"<Because of the children, I'm guessing at least a dozen, who Darkness sacrificed in some meaningless ritual that it thinks would lead it closer to power.>" Deadlight Hollow said bitterly. "<The children whom I arrived too late to save, and whom you arrived too late to save as well. That is the consequence of our failures. Not being forced to retreat in the face of overwhelming power, not being forced to confront our own weaknesses. But the loss of lives. And that's what I am trying to atone for. That's what I'm trying to put a stop to. Can you imagine how many of your countrymen will die if Darkness is allowed to continue its rampage? What is more important, lives or burgers?>"

"<Lives.>" Rey admitted. Burgers couldn't cheer for him.

"<Yes, lives. At least we can agree to this thing.>" Deadlight Hollow offered a hand and Rey freely took it.

They stood, hands joined, until Rey remembered that he was shaking hands with a gay and disengaged his grip with firm but circumspect alacrity.

"<Er, so.>" Rey still felt blunderingly awkward with the crossdressing guy, but at least it was now a forceful, purpose-filled kind of blundering. "<I guess at this rate, I'll have to accept you as my new personal spirit adviser, huh! I hope firing a dead president ghost for you is worth it.>"

"<Rey Quirino...>" Deadlight Hollow warned.

"<Hey! Just quipping. Keeps my balance, these quips. Also, call me Rey. It's kinda weird to hear my full name over and over. It's like, I'm not a kid any more, okay? I have a job! And lots of admittedly insincere friends!>"

"<'Call me Rey', huh...>" Deadlight Hollow looked very much like he was not smirking.

"<What? Besides, everyone calls me Rey!>" Rey turned away and struck his default hands-at-hips pose in a very let's-put-this-topic-behind-us sort of way. "<So, how are we going to meet up with the Senator? Are we doing the trippy teleport thing again?>"

"<No. I'll need to be able to navigate.>" Deadlight Hollow's hand moved, pulling his colourless cloak into existence. It draped over him like a veil and settled across his outstretched arm like the wing membrane of a particularly dramatic bat. "<Come.>" He offered. "<We'll fly.>"

"<Nah. I'll jump.>"

---

Cebu City


Chaos and Edge stewed in a cheapo hotel lobby, completely ignoring the signs telling them not to smoke. The air smelled of sweat and ash and a hint of licorice, barely stirred by a dust-clogged air conditioner on the far wall. The coffee table between them was littered with stained ceramic cups, plastic bottled water and bottles of cheap liquor.

The former looked up from his mobile edition of PMC Monthly on the hotel's free wi-fi . "You know what, bropteryx? I've always wanted to ride out a meteor impact shockwave."

"You said you hated meteor shockwaves what, fifteen minutes ago." Edge chided, wreathed in greenish cigarette smoke. His sunglasses were perched on his forehead.

"Well duh. They're big nasty things, liable to kill you even when you're riding away from them like a bat outta hell. That's what I don't like about them. But the idea of it, though..." Chaos shifted uncomfortably on his stiff, slab-sided sofa. "And I never thought I'd do this while not on a proper highway."

"It's not something that a lot of people get to experience." Edge conceded.

"Now c'mon." Chaos tried to sprawl expansively back into his seat but the seat resisted his attentions with a brusque bounce. He looked wistfully at his empty glass of bourbon. "You totally recorded that experience into your brain-meats as well. Admit it, I totally saw you making your recording tics."

Edge cracked a slight smile. "Perhaps you did."

"Perhaps my aching ass. You've been replaying that ride back to back since we started waiting here, you geek." Chaos scoffed.

Edge stubbed his absinthe cigarette on the overflowing ashtray. He reach back into his doffed suit jacket and finagaled out another smoke. "In actual fact, I haven't. I was more worried about almost getting killed by our own employer, so I've being trying to figure us out a good angle out of this job. Do you have any bright ideas on that front, hmm? Other than keep hanging onto the grimdark gravy train which looks more and more like it'll be pulling into some kind of grimdark death camp by the minute?"

"I dunno bro. You're responsible for handling all the moral justifications."

There was a neatly concealed flash and Edge's cigarette was lit. He was always shy over how he lit them. "Why do I keep you around again?"

"Because I bring 'uncanny amounts of luck and a startling predilection for mayhem' to the table." Chaos answered promptly. "You said so yourself like, two years ago. Want some bourbon?"

"Too early in the day." Edge broke in his fresh cigarette. Sickly swirls of smoke joined their brethren on a sluggish pilgrimage around the lobby. "Also, it's almost three years now."

Chaos looked up guiltily from working the calculator app on his smartphone. "Yeah. My bad."

Edge sighed greenly. "And it's not moral justifications I'm worrying about here, it's our tender keisters. We aren't exactly finding ourselves becoming the grimdark camp guards here. We're more like the grimdark hobos who clambered onto a moving car at midnight and found it jam-packed with corpses."

"We can always cut our losses and run." Said Chaos, discomfited. "Go to ground here. Treat the rest of the trip like a vacation. I'm not even sure if the boss-person needs us here any more."

"I'm not sure if we want to do that, frankly." Edge leaned forward, weighing his knees with his elbows. "With the kinds of things our employer let slip this morning, I don't want to be watching from the same country when his op reaches the endgame."

Chaos sat up. "Really? I just tune out all the darksplanations now."

"Whereas I started listening very hard when I realized he was being serious about them." Edge took another long drag. "But the main problem is a practical one and rather insuperable. Say, did you park the demon bikes properly?"

"Left them in the lot outside. I reckoned they'd bite the hands off anyone who tried to hotwire them. Why?"

Edge pointed his smoking cigarette at Chaos' face. "That's exactly it. The bikes are bloody demons. They're his creatures, just like all those hellhounds he pulls out of nowhere. How far do you think we can go on them if he didn't want us to? Huh?" He saw Chaos pinch the bridge of his nose. "Hung over already?"

"Nah brosch. I see the devil." Chaos gestured wearily behind Edge with his empty glass, where a column of shadow and cinder was coalescing. Heatless smoke crept across the floor, swirling out of the sudden, inverted tornado.

A flash of photo-negative lightning and the column was a pillar set between the yellowing ceiling and the linoleum floor, a thing made of tormented faces and indistinct, writhing forms.

"Could have just sent a candygram." Edge muttered as he watched over his shoulder.

A curious bellboy, the crushing mundanity of whose life had evidently overwhelmed all reasonable instinct for self-preservation, crept up to the new addition to his lobby. The arm that punched out of the edifice with a crash only narrowly missed his face.

The bellboy turned and ran, not waiting to see the rest of the column crumble to reveal Darkness' grotesque figure. He managed a respectable but unremarkable number of steps before Darkness' gaze reduced him to drifting salt.

In the freshly deserted lobby, Darkness adjusted his trenchcoat. His ill-moulded clothes steamed and clinked, as though fresh from a kiln.

"Yo, boss-person!" Chaos called as he heaved himself to his feet. "Did you get those two guys?"

He was already behind the sofa before Darkness' head could fully turn, and thus only had to extricate himself from the drift of sofa-salt that he suddenly found himself crouching in the middle of. "I'm guessing no, then." He said ruefully.

Edge, who had unfolded off his sofa slowly and coldly, took a very deliberate drag on his cigarette. "And we were thinking about getting a second room for you. Now I don't think we'll even get our deposit back."

Darkness' eyes swept towards him, but the fires in them had subsided to a glimmer. "Hovelage will...not be necessary." His face was unreadable, and Edge could find no human expressions upon it. "The promised land is but one step away."

"What's up then, boss-person?" Chaos got to his feet a second time, shaking salt out of his tracksuit. "It's not like we've been operatin' on a fixed timetable anyway."

"I-" Darkness began, but something seized him and cast his words, like jetsam, into a different stream. "...Should I? Shall I? He lives yet, buoyed by wings of ragged shadow. Yet as he lives, so does the promised land beckon with wings of gold. Should I? Shall I?"

Chaos and Edge watched in aghast fascination, their predicament temporarily forgotten. This was not the Darkness they knew. Their mutual employer's thought processes have never been laid more bare.

"What is this strange vision? For the first time, I see the paths that lie before me..." Darkness mused. "...like cobblestones. Like roots in the deep. Like poetry in the dark. Thread of light so thin, so pathetically fragile...yet they cast mighty shadows that move my black heart to fear. Tell me, mortals." He turned slowly, as though fearful of the answer. "Is this the feeling you call hope?"

Edge and Chaos exchanged a long, long look.

"Could be." Edge ventured.

"Yeah, could be. Though we're not specialists in the affairs of the heart, if you know what I mean." Chaos added.

Though his face was already a mess of lines and gritted teeth as it always were, Darkness' tone hardened. "If so, I pity you mortals ever the more. Such a...seduction shall have no place in the world after my final ascension. But as I regard my new realm upon my dark throne, I shall perhaps pay some infinitesimal regard for that which illuminates the path to my promised land! I shall retain hope. Yes! I shall retain hope in a chest wrought from the ivory of heroes. I shall cast it into the deepest pit until the memory of its light fades to oblivion. And then I shall forget to fear. Yes."

"So..." Chaos inquired.

"We move." Darkness concluded with a sudden brusqueness. "The hero yet lives, yet he is merely of the world and it is the world I seek to surpass. Let the world not forget that this is my ascension! I shall not yield the stage! And I shall not overstay my welcome. The locus..." Darkness made a sudden intake of breath, as though speaking the very word thrilled him to the core. "...I know where it is. The dark heart of the Philippines."

To be continued...
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Ford Prefect »

A part of me would like to believe that at the end of all this, Rey might have grown as a person, but ...
FEEL THESE GUNS ARCHWIND THESE ARE THE GUNS OF THE FLESHY MESSIAH THE TOOLS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION THAT WILL ENACT THE LAW OF MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Invictus »

DEAR READER, you have reached the approximate halfway point of ADVENT REY. You have unlocked a BONUS COMIC:

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"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

God, I love this. Rey being an utter dumbass, a magnificent pathetic awesomely hilarious dumbass. Edge and Chaos being such shmucks. And Darkness. Darkness! :lol:

This is what they call an ensemble cast!
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Ford Prefect »

Vic that comic is just insanely rad. I keep coming back to it.
FEEL THESE GUNS ARCHWIND THESE ARE THE GUNS OF THE FLESHY MESSIAH THE TOOLS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION THAT WILL ENACT THE LAW OF MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Invictus »

Outskirts of Cebu City

"<I say,>" Rey said, "<This is a pretty cool view of the city. I just never expected to do this kinda sightseeing while hanging off a helicopter by one hand.>"

"<I apologize to you and the senator both.>" Deadlight Hollow was hanging on to the other side of the helicopter by his elbows. "<A mid-air rendezvous from across the Thin Veil, while at the same time persuading a leaping superhero not to barrel into a fragile vehicle with such momentum, proved beyond my abilities.>"

"<Come on, I only almost flipped the helicopter over.>" Rey protested.

"<You in fact flipped the helicopter around a full three hundred and sixty degrees, plus a bit more. It's a miracle you didn't pitch anyone off.>"

"<I said sorry about that already!>"

"<See it as an opportunity to apologize properly to those crew members who have only just recovered from their concussions.>" Deadlight Hollow heaved himself laboriously to a firmer position on the listing helicopter's landing rail. "<Senator, is our transport holding up?>"

Senator Gringo Honasan briefly took his head out of his hands to answer the query. "<As long as we don't lose any more parts of it.>"

"<Hey, I also apologized for the door already!>" Rey shouted over the thudding rotors. He peered down. "<But at least some slum family gets a new roof today.>"

"<Only if they weren't all crushed by your gift.>" Deadlight Hollow scrabbled for, and managed to get a hold of the floor of the passenger compartment. He then hooked a toned leg over the ledge.

Rey wagged a finger on his free hand. "<Now now, you just don't get how this country works. If that happened, another slum family gets a new roof today! After they wipe it down a bit, of course.>"

Deadlight Hollow had half his body in the helicopter now. "<How enlightening. Are there any more pearls of wisdom that you wish to reveal?>"

"<Hmm.>" Rey considered entirely without irony. "Oh, yeah, almost forgot about this. Yo Senator Gringo! I bet you have better things to do with your mouth too!"

"I beg your pardon?" The senator said slowly.

"Like, with...your...mouth. Get it?" Rey heard no response from his position under the chopper. "It's supposed to be innuendo!" He explained.

"I beg your pardon?" The senator managed.

"Back in VaticanBurger you executed that hot diss, remember? Like how you implied that I should be getting on with this quest instead of stuffing my mouth with admittedly quite shitty fast food?" Rey was growing annoyed. "That's my rejoinder for you! Don't tell me you forgot about the whole duel thing!"

"Alas, I am defeated." Senator Honasan mouthed woodenly. "You wit has truly grown along with your determination." He then proceeded to seek even more depth in his hands to bury his head into.

"Ha!"

Deadlight Hollow watched the exchange from his finally secure perch. "<I have no idea what was just said.>" He suggested carefully. "<But I propose to have the senator explain to Rey the precise gravity of our present situation.>"

"<Yes. I believe this will be scarcely less pleasant.>" Honasan muttered. "<Listen then, Rey Quirino. I have every reason to believe that the demon Darkness wishes to obtain the Heart of Darkness, which is currently in the keeping of former president Fidel Ramos, for itself.>"

"<Wait, you mean the evil power is an actual thing? Like something Ramos keeps under his bed?>" Rey exclaimed.

"<In this nation yes, evil has a material form. It is a concentration of dark power so dense that it has coalesced into a physical object.>" He shook his head. "<At least, so far as we have been able to determine. We haven't dared to examine it any further for fear of disturbing the thing's quiescence. Yet in all of our perfunctory investigations, it unmistakeably stinks of a parochial power.>"

"<What the senator means is that the Heart represents only the...qualities of the Philippines, and that no other equivalent loci exist, for whatever reason.>" Deadlight Hollow said before Rey could ask. "<But this does not explain why it exists, or perhaps more tellingly, how Mr. Ramos came to possess it.>"

Honasan cast a jaundiced eye at Deadlight Hollow's line of questioning, but found that there was no gaze he could meet. "<To be frank, I don't know and I'd rather not know how such a thing could come into being. I am a solider at heart, not a seeker of these kinds of truths. All I'm sure of is the threat the Heart will represent to the nation if it is allowed to fall into the hands of another.>"

"<But what does it do?>" Rey asked.

"<As for your second question, I don't know how the former president acquired it either.>" Honasan continued. "<I suspect, from even earlier presidents.>" He smiled grimly. "<The history of our country is not kind to presidents.>"

"<But what does it do?>" Rey insisted. "<Also, you take that back about Cory!>"

"<Rey's question is direct, perhaps even astute.>" Deadlight Hollow interjected as he settled down on an empty spot in the passenger compartment. "<Any magus worth his cloak can hypothesize a variety of uses for such access to the...platonic dimension of an entire country. Though given the nature of the artifact, I cannot imagine that it could ever be used well.>"

"<To say that the Heart is cursed would be a gross understatement as well as a fundamental misunderstanding.>" Honasan re-interjected crossly. "<It is nothing but concentrated evil. You cannot seek to use it. You can only be used by it. Former president Ramos has been ill-used enough by it, even though he has never exploited it for his own gain. Never.>" The old soldier looked up, suppressed a shudder, produced a cigarette and tried to light it. "<I've seen bare skin age and wither from touching that thing. I've seen heroes reduced to invalids just by claiming ownership over it.>"

Rey heaved himself up for a moment with his arm to peer through the missing door into the passenger compartment, causing the helicopter to list. "<Are we still talking about Fidel Ramos here?>"

Deadlight Hollow rubbed his chin. "<Nevertheless, I'll bet that none of the previous holders of the Heart had been demonic emanations of pure darkness either. It may be that such a being would be able to successfully command power of such a...similar nature.>"

"<This is what we are afraid of. The former president occasionally has feelings...dreams. Visions. Side effects of pitting his will against the thing day and night. Such vague impressions were what alerted us to the arrival of the demon and his cohorts on our soil, as well as to some of its initial intentions upon setting foot here. I've been around FVR long enough to take such impressions seriously.>"

"<And that's why you came to warn me.>" Rey realized.

Honasan sighed. "<It's no fault of yours that I came before you could appreciate such a warning. The fact that Darkness isn't putting all of its efforts into defeating you before laying claim to the Heart was another unpleasant surprise on our part. Your companion here has mentioned that the demon is an erratic creature that's barely bound by its own logic...and we're no longer able to predict what its next step would be.>"

"<But the intrinsic resonance between Darkness and the Heart is undiminished, I'm guessing.>" Deadlight Hollow said.

"<Not weakening, but strengthening. My people at the former president's end have been reporting an increase in the intensity of his...premonitions. His condition is declining. If anything, I'll bet that Darkness knows where to look for his objective and is heading for it as we speak.>" The concrete expanses of Cebu City abruptly gave way to the muddy blue of the Mactan Channel. "<Lapu-Lapu City is ahead. A military plane is waiting to take us to Manilla. That's where the former president is in hiding.>"

"<Hmm, Lapu-Lapu. The name kind of rings a bell.>" Rey shaded his eyes as the sea raced past under his feet.

"<The first Hero of the Philippines. There's a statue of him somewhere down there.>" Honasan gripped a canvas safety strap in the cabin. "<He was as worthy of the title as you are.>"

"<His claim to fame was slaying Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan in battle, if I remember my research correctly.>" Deadlight Hollow mused. "<Did the title pass on to you by intention or happenstance, I wonder?>"

"<You're all talking over me, man.>" Rey complained from under the landing rails. "<Look, I haven't been to school much so don't try to patronize me with this history shit. I've beaten up foreigners too!>"

"<Noted.>" Honasan noted.

The increasingly distressed helicopter swept over the urbanized coastal strip that was Lapu-Lapu City and inland into Mactan Cebu International Airport, where they secured authorization to land directly on the tarmac by having the senator repeatedly shout his name at the air control people, or at least as far as Rey could tell.

Also, he had to hop off before the chopper landed on him because the pilot had apparently forgotten that he'd been hanging off the rail the entire trip. He briefly thought about how stupid it was to insist on hanging off the chopper by one arm in the first place just because he had metahuman stamina, but then the realization that he'd been hanging off a damaged helicopter mid-crisis for longer than any of those action heroes had done in the movies brought his mood right around. He reminded himself to remind Luiz to get in touch with the Guinness World Records for it.

Rey also noticed that the runway the heli had landed on was crawling with all those ex-mil types he saw yesterday. Ah yes, the wankers who had given him the cold shoulder while he was chowing down in the VaticanBurger. Look at them! Some of them weren't even paying attention to him right now, and instead were clambering in and out of the battered C-130 that was probably their ride and forming cordons and doing all other kinds of fancy bodyguard stuff, as though he weren't the most dangerous man in a hundred miles right now. Oh yeah, that's right. That pep talk back in the dead forest had left him pretty pumped up.

If this was the Rey Quirino who was still indulging in his epic burger tour, he would have been annoyed, maybe even angry, at all those people who weren't paying attention to him. Heck, he would have been annoyed that the people who were paying attention to him were mostly staring at the dirt, the half-melted costume and his general ragged state. But the Rey Quirino of now could treat all this with coolness, Rey gloated to himself. He had most definitely grown as a person. He was better than that. He was better than them. He knew what real heroism is now. They weren't there, they couldn't understand him, and he couldn't expect to understand the things he had gone through. Petty shit like this just slides off him like water. It took real shit...well...

Rey successfully suppressed that episode again while managing to walk straight and betray nothing in his expression to anyone nearby all at the same time, a remarkable achievement in multitasking by his standards. So intent on this was Rey that he had completely forgotten what he was going to say to Luiz when the personal assistant pelted off the plane's airstairs and, still accelerating, threw himself at Rey with arms open.

Rey pushed himself to even more extreme vistas of multitasking and used the newfound capacity to dodge Luiz's flying figure, which hit the tarmac with a crunch.

"Rey! I was worried about you!" Luiz didn't wait to get up to start babbling. "I'm sorry I didn't take the senator seriously and suddenly it's all guys with implications of guns and now they're hijacking our schedule and forcing you to terminate your burger tour in Cebu and..."

"It's cool. I'm cool." Rey, a person who had never realized where his true priorities laid before, said. "I'm feeling cool with my new epic quest and even pretty cool with gays, as long as they're pretty cool as well. I'm feeling so cool that I'm going to introduce you to a new date if there's a clean new costume I can change into on that plane there. Actually, I'm going to introduce him to you anyway, so you better have that change of clothes ready."

"Yeah sure, we already sed out your spare costumes in the plane..." Luiz said nervously while trying to staunch the blood flowing from his broken nose, but then he caught sight of Deadlight Hollow striding briskly behind Honasan and stared. Blood drip-dripped onto the taxiway.

"Not bad, huh?" Rey remarked. "No homo, of course."

Luiz tore his eyes away and rooted among his pockets for a handkerchief. "Ub course not. Ahaha."

"So that's Senator Gringo-wait, you two probably know each other already, right? You were on the phone together." Rey continued. "The gay behind the senator is called Deadlight Hollow. He's a wizard. I've taken him on as my personal spiritual advisor for this quest, you know, along with Cory. You two get along, okay?" He winked smugly.

The two reached the plane as well. A knot of security people congregated around the senator for a moment before they were sent off with brisk orders. "We'll be setting off as soon as we get on the plane." Honasan told Rey tersely. "The signs from Manilla are not looking good. If we can't get there in time, I may have to activate...<Python Unit.>"

"<Excuse me, did you just say 'Python Unit' in English?>" Deadlight Hollow asked as they hurried up the airstairs to the old Hercules.

"<Yes. It's supposed to be.>" Honasan paused briefly. "<I'm not sure what use they will be against a demon of darkness, but they are old comrades and reliable men. I hope the situation will not worsen far enough to force me to call upon their aid.>"

"<Whatever insurance you have will not go amiss.>" Deadlight Hollow assured him. "<Even the delay bought by one more warm body may mean the difference between victory and damnation.>"

"I've never heard of these <Python Unit> guys." Rey was already in the plane, wincing as he peeled melted and re-solidified layers of impact polymer and plastic logos off his skin. "Are they like superheroes or something? Are they those guys I met at that party in you know, Luiz?"

Before Luiz could think up an excuse Honasan said, "They're not superheroes, Rey. Their service to this nation cannot be impeached."

"Oh okay." Rey said, losing interest.

They had barely strapped themselves in (except Rey, who was busy changing) when the plane started taxiing.

"<I am surmising by the arrangement of the seating that you have further matters to discuss with me.>" Deadlight Hollow said to Honasan, who was clutching a walkie-talkie in one hand and a Blackberry in the other.

"<Hmm? Yes. Regarding...>" Honasan flicked a glance at Rey, who was stumbling around the spacious cargo hold trying to keep his balance. "<...the other piece of the puzzle.>"

Deadlight Hollow bit his lip. "<The rising champion of your nation.>"

"<The nature of which we barely had any foreknowledge of. Certainly, not of anything that manifested this way. Are you sure he was tapping into an external power source just as Darkness was?>"

"<My Deadlights generally diminish the powers of others with a near-mathematical exactitude. I have rarely ever encountered any power that can resist such an effect – unless that power is not originating from a source I can interact with on a meaningful basis.>"

Honasan frowned. "<This is hardly proof that there exists some benign counterpart to the Heart empowering our hero.>"

"<No.>" Deadlight Hollow admitted. "<But this...irregularity has already saved his life multiple times. And I do not believe that it is a coincidence that Darkness had marked him as some sort of ritual adversary. We're being forced to play the demon's game here, so perhaps even its mad logic may prove to be of use. You obtained portents from your former president to the same effect, did you not?>"

"<Yes, but nothing of his supposed status could be detected from what we had to work with. Which granted, is not much.> Honasan said bitterly. "<Sometimes, I regret how we remained a military conspiracy at the root. But then there are issues of trust, you must understand. Only this juncture of crisis and coincidence have let you catch a glimpse of the dark shadow behind this country.>

"<However, he is our best hope.>" Deadlight Hollow looked at Rey falling, clean pants around his knees, as the plane took off. "<Or at least, a sufficient distraction. I assume there is no plan beyond marshalling a defence around Mr. Ramos once we reach Manilla?>"

"<I am a military man. I have to hope that it only comes to that.>"

To be continued...
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Ford Prefect »

'Sometimes, I regret how we remained a military conspiracy at the root.' You know it sounds like a joke, but then I remember the stuff that Shroom has mentioned from time to time. :D
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Re: [Secret Santa] ADVENT REY

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The gay behind the senator is called Deadlight Hollow. He's a wizard. I've taken him on as my personal spiritual advisor for this quest, you know, along with Cory.

:lol:


I so can't believe how straight this is being played. :mrgreen:
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"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
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