The Metahuman Agency: The Superhuman War

Imagination

I am an artist.

I always have been. As long as I have been me, I have been an artist. It is what defines me. It is what I live for. You might say it is even my purpose. There is nothing to me beyond my art. I do not take pleasure in food. I do not make love. Everything beyond my art, in fact, repulses me. This world is so dull, so utterly vacant beyond my art, it downright baffles me. But then again, this world too has a purpose. Its purpose is for me to use it to create. It is my canvas, my little playground. I have so many pieces, so many pieces I am so very proud of. To think others consider Picasso or O'Keeffe geniuses. Ah well...I'm not looking for their praise or approval. What I do is for myself and that is enough. More than enough.

There was of course a man before I found my gift. But he was not me. That creature was a totally separate entity. I have forgotten him. All that is left is an awareness that I was something else before I became me. Before I was liberated and saw the true purpose of this world laid bare to me, in all its beauty. That beauty was of course blood, violence, rage, fear...all the things society wants to forget, to bury. How silly they are. How completely and utterly foolish. I wonder if they comprehended the beauty of death when I buried my knife into their hearts, sliced open their throats, and painted it all to be frozen in paint and ink forever.

Now here I sit. Basking in my work, feeling oddly nostalgic for the past, and oh so excited for the near future. An announcement has gone over the PA System, summoning 'everyone' to the bridge. I shall ignore it. Jacqueline's bluster is amusing but she reminds me of a dog chasing its tail with her little speeches. Always offering repetitive patterns. I correctly deduced everything about her in a matter of days. She will offer nothing new to me for this next speech. But nevertheless, this announcement excites me, for it means the journey is beginning. My masterpiece...it looms.

I idly stroke my chest. The pain still lingers there from where Jason kicked me. But it was nothing compared to the agony I endured seeing him break my masterpiece in half, right in front of me. That painting may not have been what I intended, true, but it would have made a fine masterpiece and outshone my previous work. The splendor of the image...my blade...plunging right into Max's eye! Oh, the wonder of it! I can still here his lovely scream. The very sensation still sends tingles down my spine. I have never heard a more wonderful sound in my life. Sometimes, I think back to that moment and his squeals, his delicious squeals, help lull me to sleep. It was a glorious moment and I captured it...it should have become my greatest work. But Jason...that boy somehow overcame me. And I confess...yes...I confess, I lost. I suffered not only the humiliation of being thrown into that river and nearly drowning but I saw my art ripped apart before my eyes. So much work, so much time, and it was gone in a flash. It was owing to my strength and convictions I did not shed any tears over that image being lost. I can try to replicate it, of course, but it wouldn't be the same.

So here I sit, in the belly of an iron war machine. Basking in the light of all my pieces, ruminating on my successes, and pondering my one true failure. I have greatly enjoyed my time with the Skeleton Crew but sweet Jacqueline is a fool to think she could control me. She fears me, this I know. Her fear is always delicious to behold. I see her shrink in my presence and I've often drawn, late at night, that expression over and over again. I know what lies beneath her mask. She's a lovely thing but untrained, undisciplined. The potential is there to become an artist like myself but she is a hammer, preferring blunt force. Whereas I am a scalpel. Every cut, every wound that I inflict is careful, perhaps even comparable to the kiss of a lover. I am grace and she is not. Yet I am strangely drawn to her all the same. Perhaps that's why I've not cut her throat while she is sleeping or drowned her in paint. She is not only useful, she intrigues me, much like the metahumans...

Ah, the metahumans. Speaking of nostalgia, I remember how my eyes were opened when I saw the news coverage of Washington. The sheer majesty of the destruction presented left me truly flabbergasted. I found a new source of inspiration on that day and these metahumans have been my muse ever since. They are not the most cooperative of subjects, but even so, I love them. I love them more than any other subject I have toyed with and created. They are ripe. Ready to be molded into my masterpiece. And soon...oh so soon...I shall have them exactly where I want them.

What will happen next? Jacqueline's lovely impulses will be unleashed thanks to I. I knew she was so close to peeling away her vile mask and letting loose the creature within, the creature she's meant to be. This machine, this airship, will unleash destruction the likes of which have never been seen. I can already see it. The fires. The bodies. The stench of the dead. The screams of the dying. The mutilated limbs, the toppling buildings, the blood, the ever flowing blood, painting once proud streets red as they flowed, flowed in such quantity that San Francisco would drown in it.

Beautiful. It was going to be utterly. Just thinking about it makes me tremble with barely contained anticipation.

And at the center of it all shall be the metahumans. The chaos around them shall simply be the backdrop, beautiful, but paling in comparison to what I'm going to do them. How I'm going to mold them like clay and take that final, glorious step in pushing them, pushing them all over the edge before I finish them forever and make my masterpiece from what is left. They've been my muse for so long I'm almost regretful its going to come to an end like this. But I can think of no better finale to our relationship than this one. Jason, Max, Hiroshi...and the rest. They'll all be there, full of hate, fear, and each ready for my brush.

I smile to myself. Then I stroke my blade. I kiss it, running my tongue, dancing around its sharp edges. I taste the sweet taste of dried blood on it, from a thousand different muses, a thousand different men, women, and children who hang in my paintings. Each special in their own way. I'll never forget any of them. The metahuman's blood, of course, will be the greatest of all though.

I allow myself to be pulled from these wonderful thoughts. I crane my neck back, looking at the paint soaked ceiling, the smell of ink perforating my senses. I smile, feeling the paint writhe in tandem with my emotions. I twirl my finger and the paint, like a limb, responds to my unspoken command. I manipulate it with ease, wafting it take the form of various abstract pieces before forming into images of the metahumans. Jason. Max. Laureen. Audrey. James. And sweet Hiroshi. All beautiful. And when I cut them into ribbons and soak my skin with their entrails, they will transcend beauty and become legendary.

Sighing in pleasure, I let my hand drop. The shapes fade to nothing. And as my hand hits the floor, so to does the paint according the ceiling. I close my eyes, as droplets of it splatter down onto me like rain. I left them slither over my skin, manipulating them to slide across my flesh, twisting over me and feeling me with the most glorious sensations.

I think of rotting cats in trash-ridden backalleys, slowly being consumed by maggots, their smell making any man spill his guts. I think of men and women fighting in the streets, tearing each other limb from limb to get at the last slices of bread. I think of babies abandoned by their mothers, crying out as they slowly starve to death. I think of a knife slicing through a person's chest, making a wet crunch noise as it saws its way through skin and reveals his internal organs. I think of a child's fingers, being cut off one by one, each new dismembered finger more painful than the last. I think of buildings exploding, killing those inside immediately, discharging glass and debris to the fleeing crowds below as it rips loose as its foundations to meet a final end in the city below. I imagine all this and so much more, as the paint continues to splatter down and crawl over my body.

And I think to myself...

What a wonderful world.