Murdersphere Mosaic [ManXMan] [BoyXBoy]

Chapter 10 Part 2 Apotheosis of War aka The Really Big End

Danger. The sensation prickles up around me, sheathing me in protective darkness as I turn to find a figure in sealed armor, fashioned to present a stylized impression of full plate armor with an incongruously Greek or even Roman influence.

"John Henry Munroe, Dekamara, or however you knew him, no longer exists." I say.

"But you are here." The helmet's visor is down, the face of the speaker completely obscured. Behind her, figure made of golden fire appears... and hands her... what looks like a book. "Oh, you think that you can escape Judgment, what you did to poor Vycta, because you had your memories altered? You had your hierarchy of experiences altered..."

I spit. "I did not 'have myself altered' it was done to me. If you are a friend of Vycta's then you are no more worthy to be his friend, than John Henry Munroe's so called friends. I reject your 'judgment.' You aren't anything close to a deity."

The sense of danger recedes. In the back of my mind, I hear high pitched patterns of unintelligible static

"This is not over with, Herokiller." She says.

"Yes it is." I say, wincing under the renewed ministrations of the BSM. "If only because, this is obviously a dream."

"You killed my friend!" She exclaims. "Devoured his soul with your foul experiment."

"It was not 'my' experiment." I say. "And only the second time, can I say it was my choice. Besides, he committed suicide. He jumped in willingly."

"Because you reached into here and gave him the opportunity! " She replies.

"And then I was sent to prison, riven of everything I was and sent to perform in life or death blood and sexsports!" I bellow. "Body, consciousness, spirit, rewritten, remixed, repurposed!

"That... that's impossible." She says. "It is still your consciousness! Still your soul!"

A new voice, amused and firm says. "The multiverse is a vast and terrible place, and not all Engines of Creation are applied the same. Judgment has been cast. Now be quiet Sivar, the Superstructure communes with the Choir. To slow the Formless Advance, we will exploit Vycta's connection with this beachhead of resistance and warn them of what the fugitives of a foul, alternate creation intend to do so that the Engineer can help them escape."

"Deus Ex Machina?" I offer.

"No." It says. "Orai would save as many as she could without our intervention. With our intervention, she will do much, much more."

"Great, I'm having a delusion of Orai's greatness." I reply.

The voice actually laughs. "This confrontation has come to an end until your true death Exalt, formed of many souls. But to us, and to reality, you are Herokiller and it is written in your pedigree. You have to go back, before it is too late."

"I don't know why I came here in the first place!" I say.

"To be a relay and to be sealed, properly." The voice says. "The Word we hold and the Will of the Superstructure are enough."

The book disappears from the woman's hand. The flaming creature vanishes. The book appears right before me. I take it. I feel warmth at my back.

The creature speaks a word, one that I cannot understand, but it makes the ground shake, and the air shiver. A flaming arm wraps around my throat and a blade of solid golden flame punches through my back and through my chest and into the book. The arm releases me and I turn in time to see the flaming thing step back. Sword and book become a golden fluid that flows into me and bringing new, heretofore unexperienced levels of gratuitous pain. I feel connections to unseen things attenuate, snap and burn away, evaporating through my skin.