Post by Lab Rat King on Apr 17, 2021 22:45:52 GMT -5
“At this hour
Lie at my mercy all mine enemies.”
― Prospero; William Shakespeare’s The Tempest
The month of April had begun to settle snug around the city of Baltimore, and with it came a kindness of warmer days; Kane was happy to leave the windows open, allowing a mild breeze to swirl through the little apartment. It tousled the lightweight curtains with the familiarity of a friend, carrying the pleasant scent of daffodils from next door’s balcony, promising the golden glow of spring. At night, their yellow petals were cast in a silver light that inspired him to think of the pale platinum locks of Grace’s hair.
He might never have a fairy tale ending--as some venomous voices in his recent past might suggest--but the present that he lived in was a welcome far cry whence he’d come. He was grateful for that. He was washed in gratitude for every day that passed in which he could see the sun, stand on his own two feet, and recollect the treasured memories recounted to him by his wife. Between every breath that ached, every dose of medication, and every joint that cracked and groaned under his unnatural stature, he invited thoughts of his generous friends and allies--the few he knew he could trust to guard his back.
He invited thoughts of Luna; his baby girl. His little silver moon.
“Goodnight stars. Goodnight air. Goodnight noises, everywhere.”
The mobile over Luna’s crib spun slowly in the last of the spring breeze, in a subtle dance of spinning saucers and stars. Her father’s coarse whisper was the last sound; the last noise to be sent to bed. He slowly lowered the picture book into his lap, closing it with one broad, calloused hand, his amber eyes reflecting the nearby night-light’s warm glow as he gazed down at the sleeping face of his daughter. His miracle. When he looked at her, it was so much easier to stay rooted. He was stable. He became her castle, and he took solace in that--embodying the towers that would guard her through her whole life.
After being lost to himself for such a long time, having that kind of purpose renewed his drive to press on. All the pain, all the struggling, scraping and clawing had been worth it. He was still broken, still wounded in many ways, but he was finally home.
Goodnight, Moon, he thought, rising carefully from the chair beside the crib, gently closing the window before stepping out his daughter’s bedroom.
He drew himself up, letting out a long exhale with closed eyes. It was never completely silent in his head, but the roaring guardian that his mind had created to protect him was at ease. He and his family, right now in this moment, were safe.
Any incursion on that sense of security would most certainly bring the monster to the forefront; it would be an invitation for the ultraviolence he knew as second nature.
He would rise up, bloody and howling, to meet it.
Bloody and howling…
Bloody and HOWLING!
Through the mud and blood we’re crawling
Clawing our way up to see the morning.
The Lab Rat King jerked his head to the side, as if trying to shake something free from his temples.
“Stop it.”
The light is so inviting
But on us our life is riding.
Slow down and we will feel the thorns
Before we ever see the morn.
“I said stop! Not now. I don’t want to remember.”
He planted one hand on the bathroom mirror in the Carnage locker room; recently, whenever he was alone, it became difficult to predict which of his identities would take the wheel. Most of the time he was able to retain his lucidity in isolation, as he felt safe when he was alone. However, since the incident in the ring with that awful noise over the PA system, he only felt vulnerable without company. Leon had told him it sounded like a deep, thumping resonation that hammered the eardrums, unpleasant in frequency. It was something like the wind beating against the gap in an accelerating car’s window.
He hadn’t heard the sound himself, as the impact on him had been instant.
He felt like such a fool. He’d finally had one good thing come back to him, and he’d let his guard down. The good doctor’s dogs were after him now. If he was caught alone, well…
… he’d promised his family he wouldn’t leave them again. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t go back to that place--back to the grey rooms and bright lights, the rats scrabbling at cold concrete in the dark, keeping him up late into the night.
He was still covered in sweat from late-night ring work; His right arm throbbed from the inside of his elbow. That was where the damage to his veins was the most obvious; they sprawled outward from there like a deep, grey-violet bolt of crackled lightning.
The gates are opened like a sucking wound.
You’re the one who broke the hinges.
So why do you cringe, cringe, cringe?
King scowled at his reflection in the mirror, his muzzle hanging around his neck. He was glaring at himself, but he knew the monster riding shotgun in his head could see it well enough.
“Because the truth fucking sucks and you know it, Big Guy.”
The Big Guy--as he called him--may have been little more than a distillation of his rage, violence and will to survive poured into a shell of a person, but those traits had become fairly substantial parts of who he was. All things considered, it had become necessary--otherwise he probably wouldn’t be alive.
That thought made him wonder. He opened his mouth, examining his red tongue and stained teeth. There was so much… wrong with him, after what had been done to him. He felt eternally grateful for his wife’s acceptance of him regardless of the changes, and for the people who deigned to treat him like a human being despite his appearance. Even so, it was a marvel he was still standing, let alone fighting in this condition. By rights he should’ve dropped dead in a ditch somewhere.
Maybe that was why Doctor Rose and his ilk had taken this long to act. Maybe they expected him to die. What if they’d expected his blood to congeal in his lungs and suffocate him? What if they’d expected his body to eat itself alive when he couldn’t keep up with his own accelerated metabolism?
They didn’t account for this, he thought.
Kane stared into his own bloodshot eyes in the mirror, the monster’s madness shining behind the flecked amber of his irises like a wolf in the night.
They didn’t account for him.
Hell, was Doctor Rose even aware of the monster he’d created? Did he fully understand the consequences of what he’d done?
Arrogance, he thought, was always paired with a lack of foresight. The assumption that one knew all possible outcomes and had planned accordingly was a dangerous thing. Doctor Rose was coming, that much was sure--he’d broadcasted that noise, played with Kane’s broken head just to show that he could. It was a taunt. The problem with taunting a monster, though, was that the beast would be ready to bite next time.
Kane’s shoulders began to relax, and he lifted both hands to his muzzle, setting it into place and pressing the snaps into place. It was warm and comforting; the leather was soft from wear. It had been nearly a year since he’d signed with Carnage, and this muzzle had protected him all that time. Behind the black he felt secure. Nothing could be forced past his teeth--no one could see him grimace in pain or grin with sadistic thrill. He liked it that way. It had taken him nearly a full year to let anyone close enough to know anything under the muzzle--but he knew he could trust those ones, now. He’d had the time he needed to watch them from behind his mask.
Leon. The Tarot Terror.
Quinn. The Huntress.
Others had betrayed him; left him to rot, or stabbed him in the back. But those ones hadn’t gotten past the mask. The monster in him knew. It knew when it was okay to let down his guard. Now, after nearly a year… Kane trusted the monster within him.
The Big Guy was no longer an enemy, hiding the truth from him. He was a guardian--a gargoyle of muscle and sinew and unbridled violence that knew when to strike and when to sleep.
That gargoyle was less than pleased by the news of intruders at the door. He didn’t know their faces. He didn’t know their intentions. His hackles were up. Yet, some part of him was buzzing inside, vibrating with anticipation, because… he’d been waiting for this.
Carnage was his. It belonged to him. He had crowned himself King of Ultraviolence--he’d buried his teeth in the red strap, the very core of what Carnage stood for. He’d defeated the Ultraviolent Goddess in a display of true violence that would shake the souls of the Legion for years to come--and he’d beaten down the weak-willed cockroaches who had come chasing after it following that. It was a crimson beacon now that called forth only the most vicious challengers. It brought them to him so he could sate the hunger he was made to feel--what his war-born alter ego was made to feel.
Endless hunger for the bloodiest battles.
War between the ropes.
The monster smiled at him in the mirror. The muzzle concealed it, but Kane knew it was there. He could feel it on his own lips, involuntary and crooked.
Bloody and howling…
The wolf is at the door, little man.
Doesn’t it rattle you raw? Can you feel the ache?
“Yes,” Kane muttered, staring steady into his own eyes.
“I can.”
I can.
I can.
I can survive this. I can. I can.
I can get through this even if I need to crawl.
I will survive this.
I will.
I will.
These thorns can’t stick in my skin. These roses can’t cage me.
She never liked roses.
She liked lavender... and chrysanthemums. Happiness and devotion. Love, longevity and joy.
When I find her again,
I’ll weave her a beautiful crown.
The Carnage Arena is dark, save for the lights above the arena itself; only a few of them are on, illuminating the canvas below in a wicked warm light. The shadows of cage bars are strewn outward across the floor, reaching toward the seats like spindly fingers that would grasp the attention of the Legion if not for their absence. This is not any cage--the bars are old, bent and tinged with rust. Weapons are forced through the uneven bars--a rake, a pipe, a dented aluminum bat. Chains lie twisted across a crooked door on damaged hinges. Nails protrude from some of the corners. In some places, there are dark stains where old blood had never been scrubbed away.
This is the Rat Cage.
It had seen action only twice before: once within the walls of Carnage’s home, and once beneath the Pavilion. This horrorcraft is the Lab Rat King’s preferred stipulation. It is an environment he thrives in; it lends itself to his repertoire, and forces his opponent to fight close and personal, where he prefers to be. It had become rather well-known to the Legion that the Lab Rat King despises chasing his prey.
Tonight, King stands atop his rusted creation; he is dressed in his ring gear, his red and black boots planted on the closed-in cage roof. His signature, the crowned rat, gleams in gold on the hip of his blood-red trunks, stretched taut over the borderline-frightful swell of muscle in his thighs. His right arm is covered by a sleeve in the same colour, which conceals most of the darkened veins that spread from his inner elbow, and his ever-present muzzle covers the lower half of his scarred face. The red-leather Ultraviolence Championship belt gleams against his abdomen, a testament to his conquest of the canvas below. At such an angle, the distortion of his figure seems even more extreme--his waist is too narrow, his chest too broad, his spine too long. It seems to curve upward and roll forward, giving him a vulture-like presence above the arena.
His amber eyes catch the warm light above his head, however, somehow making them seem even sharper in the dim. He is no scavenger. Kane King is a predator.
“Tempessssst.”
The mutant laughs; his voice is low, husky as ever, and resonant within the walls of the empty arena.
“Mmm… strange ghost. Suffered Storm. Welcome to my war; the site of my most bloody coronation. What hurricane possesses you? What lighting, wind and rain will you bring to my perilous pit that could possibly knock the gilding from my skull?”
King glances down at the canvas, and lifts his eyes with a cock of his head. The way he moves is… too fluid. It’s as though he considers every muscle, a deliberate purpose in every motion… and yet, his fingers twitch, curling into his palms only to flex outward again in lust for something to crush.
“Do you know the bodies I’ve broken here? Do you know the wreckage I’ve created so that I could climb it to the top? Do you know what happens when you starve a rat and drop it into hell, and the only escape is… up?”
There’s a growl in his voice. He kicks the cage roof beneath him, making the deathly contraption creak.
“Mmmmmgh… maybe you’ve ssssseen it. Maybe you’ve taken the time to turn back the time and observe; what else to do with a Lab Rat? What else to do but watch, and see what he can take, and see what he can do--especially when driven by a desperation so deep that you’d drown in the salty sea of it yourself? Make NO MISTAKE, burned boy… you have never stared into the eyes of Death like ME. You have been seared by flame and broken by your enemies, pushed too far. You have stood again from it with scars… so I know there is no coward’s blood in the portrait of who you are. But you have never been… tested.
“Not like the Rat.”
Shifting his weight, King takes a step back and wraps his hand around the central support bar suspending the cage. He begins to unwind a chain from it, the links clinking and scraping against each other as he does.
“To be tested so thoroughly… for so long… builds a resilience, a RAGE in us that cannot be matched by a man. Only a monster. Are you a monster? Are you sure?”
Another low laugh rumbles from deep in King’s chest. He continues to unwind the chain.
“Yesssss… you look like one. You wear a face not your own; a facsimile of a face, pale and hollow. You speak from a pit of tar, you hide your eyes to hide your humanity. But that’s just it, little mouse… it’s not your face.”
The chain falls from the support post, hanging from King’s hand. He winds the links around his palm, feeling the weight of the metal.
“I wonder why… you scour yourself of your scars. Ssssuch a conundrum. Are you burdened by shame? Do you wish to withhold the satisfaction from those who are to blame? The skin is twisted, blistered, kissed by unkind flame… and yet you choose to bury it. You pile this pale plaster over your true mask… over the story of your ssssurvival. You choose not to embrace the beast your burdens have sculpted of you. And that makes you weak.”
He looks up, pulling the chain taut between his hands. Slowly he kneels to the cage roof, beginning to fasten one end to the bars.
“Take a good look, Suffered Storm. Take in the tale my fraught frame feeds you. Let it wwwwarn you of what’s to come. What hell have I walked to be left so tattered and torn? What trials and tribulations have left me so worn? And how am I still standing here with blood in my teeth, rrrready for more? What do you have to bring me that I haven’t survived before?”
King reaches behind himself, picking up a small metal object; upon closer inspection, it seems to be a round tin of… paint. The unbound end of the chain finishes with a hook. He drives the hook into the top of the paint can with one hand, easily puncturing it with the force of the blow.
“Even so… there are nightmares beneath my scarred skin you couldn’t possibly perceive.”
He removes the hook from the paint can, smearing some of the paint against his chest. The paint, deep red, drips slowly down the violet-bruised and blushed flesh. He then drags the point of the hook on the opposite side, cutting himself open.
But he doesn’t bleed.
Not really.
Blood wells to the surface, of course; however, the moment it makes contact with the air, it appears to congeal, taking on a consistency even thicker than the paint. It starts to darken, clotting at an impossible speed in a colour that looks anything but healthy.
“This is a warning,” he rumbles, staring into the eyes of the Legion--of his opponent. “A WARNING from the King of Lab Rats. The Monster of Carnage. I know you love to bite. You love to scratch; much like the starving rat in the pit, you will scrape your way up to survive. But if you make me bleed… I’m not the only thing that will riddle your guts with regret. Be careful, Suffered Storm… because I won’t be.”
With that, King punctures the other side of the paint can; he leaves the hook in it and drops it through the bars of the cage roof. It stops short with a snap, pouring a thick, viscous stream of paint down onto the canvas.
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
King growls, a smile in his voice as he rises to his feet.
“This one is going to eat you alive.”
The eyes of the Legion pan upward from the arena, down from the lights. As the full view of the ring comes into frame, an image of Tempest’s mask becomes apparent, drawn in thick black lines across the entire canvas; the can of deep red paint continues to pour, slowly filling the black mouth of the mask, and spilling downward from the apron onto the arena floor.
The image flashes to black, the image of a bleached-white crowned rat skull flickering across the dark before disappearing with a snap.
Lie at my mercy all mine enemies.”
― Prospero; William Shakespeare’s The Tempest
The month of April had begun to settle snug around the city of Baltimore, and with it came a kindness of warmer days; Kane was happy to leave the windows open, allowing a mild breeze to swirl through the little apartment. It tousled the lightweight curtains with the familiarity of a friend, carrying the pleasant scent of daffodils from next door’s balcony, promising the golden glow of spring. At night, their yellow petals were cast in a silver light that inspired him to think of the pale platinum locks of Grace’s hair.
He might never have a fairy tale ending--as some venomous voices in his recent past might suggest--but the present that he lived in was a welcome far cry whence he’d come. He was grateful for that. He was washed in gratitude for every day that passed in which he could see the sun, stand on his own two feet, and recollect the treasured memories recounted to him by his wife. Between every breath that ached, every dose of medication, and every joint that cracked and groaned under his unnatural stature, he invited thoughts of his generous friends and allies--the few he knew he could trust to guard his back.
He invited thoughts of Luna; his baby girl. His little silver moon.
“Goodnight stars. Goodnight air. Goodnight noises, everywhere.”
The mobile over Luna’s crib spun slowly in the last of the spring breeze, in a subtle dance of spinning saucers and stars. Her father’s coarse whisper was the last sound; the last noise to be sent to bed. He slowly lowered the picture book into his lap, closing it with one broad, calloused hand, his amber eyes reflecting the nearby night-light’s warm glow as he gazed down at the sleeping face of his daughter. His miracle. When he looked at her, it was so much easier to stay rooted. He was stable. He became her castle, and he took solace in that--embodying the towers that would guard her through her whole life.
After being lost to himself for such a long time, having that kind of purpose renewed his drive to press on. All the pain, all the struggling, scraping and clawing had been worth it. He was still broken, still wounded in many ways, but he was finally home.
Goodnight, Moon, he thought, rising carefully from the chair beside the crib, gently closing the window before stepping out his daughter’s bedroom.
He drew himself up, letting out a long exhale with closed eyes. It was never completely silent in his head, but the roaring guardian that his mind had created to protect him was at ease. He and his family, right now in this moment, were safe.
Any incursion on that sense of security would most certainly bring the monster to the forefront; it would be an invitation for the ultraviolence he knew as second nature.
He would rise up, bloody and howling, to meet it.
Bloody and howling…
Bloody and HOWLING!
Through the mud and blood we’re crawling
Clawing our way up to see the morning.
The Lab Rat King jerked his head to the side, as if trying to shake something free from his temples.
“Stop it.”
The light is so inviting
But on us our life is riding.
Slow down and we will feel the thorns
Before we ever see the morn.
“I said stop! Not now. I don’t want to remember.”
He planted one hand on the bathroom mirror in the Carnage locker room; recently, whenever he was alone, it became difficult to predict which of his identities would take the wheel. Most of the time he was able to retain his lucidity in isolation, as he felt safe when he was alone. However, since the incident in the ring with that awful noise over the PA system, he only felt vulnerable without company. Leon had told him it sounded like a deep, thumping resonation that hammered the eardrums, unpleasant in frequency. It was something like the wind beating against the gap in an accelerating car’s window.
He hadn’t heard the sound himself, as the impact on him had been instant.
He felt like such a fool. He’d finally had one good thing come back to him, and he’d let his guard down. The good doctor’s dogs were after him now. If he was caught alone, well…
… he’d promised his family he wouldn’t leave them again. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t go back to that place--back to the grey rooms and bright lights, the rats scrabbling at cold concrete in the dark, keeping him up late into the night.
He was still covered in sweat from late-night ring work; His right arm throbbed from the inside of his elbow. That was where the damage to his veins was the most obvious; they sprawled outward from there like a deep, grey-violet bolt of crackled lightning.
The gates are opened like a sucking wound.
You’re the one who broke the hinges.
So why do you cringe, cringe, cringe?
King scowled at his reflection in the mirror, his muzzle hanging around his neck. He was glaring at himself, but he knew the monster riding shotgun in his head could see it well enough.
“Because the truth fucking sucks and you know it, Big Guy.”
The Big Guy--as he called him--may have been little more than a distillation of his rage, violence and will to survive poured into a shell of a person, but those traits had become fairly substantial parts of who he was. All things considered, it had become necessary--otherwise he probably wouldn’t be alive.
That thought made him wonder. He opened his mouth, examining his red tongue and stained teeth. There was so much… wrong with him, after what had been done to him. He felt eternally grateful for his wife’s acceptance of him regardless of the changes, and for the people who deigned to treat him like a human being despite his appearance. Even so, it was a marvel he was still standing, let alone fighting in this condition. By rights he should’ve dropped dead in a ditch somewhere.
Maybe that was why Doctor Rose and his ilk had taken this long to act. Maybe they expected him to die. What if they’d expected his blood to congeal in his lungs and suffocate him? What if they’d expected his body to eat itself alive when he couldn’t keep up with his own accelerated metabolism?
They didn’t account for this, he thought.
Kane stared into his own bloodshot eyes in the mirror, the monster’s madness shining behind the flecked amber of his irises like a wolf in the night.
They didn’t account for him.
Hell, was Doctor Rose even aware of the monster he’d created? Did he fully understand the consequences of what he’d done?
Arrogance, he thought, was always paired with a lack of foresight. The assumption that one knew all possible outcomes and had planned accordingly was a dangerous thing. Doctor Rose was coming, that much was sure--he’d broadcasted that noise, played with Kane’s broken head just to show that he could. It was a taunt. The problem with taunting a monster, though, was that the beast would be ready to bite next time.
Kane’s shoulders began to relax, and he lifted both hands to his muzzle, setting it into place and pressing the snaps into place. It was warm and comforting; the leather was soft from wear. It had been nearly a year since he’d signed with Carnage, and this muzzle had protected him all that time. Behind the black he felt secure. Nothing could be forced past his teeth--no one could see him grimace in pain or grin with sadistic thrill. He liked it that way. It had taken him nearly a full year to let anyone close enough to know anything under the muzzle--but he knew he could trust those ones, now. He’d had the time he needed to watch them from behind his mask.
Leon. The Tarot Terror.
Quinn. The Huntress.
Others had betrayed him; left him to rot, or stabbed him in the back. But those ones hadn’t gotten past the mask. The monster in him knew. It knew when it was okay to let down his guard. Now, after nearly a year… Kane trusted the monster within him.
The Big Guy was no longer an enemy, hiding the truth from him. He was a guardian--a gargoyle of muscle and sinew and unbridled violence that knew when to strike and when to sleep.
That gargoyle was less than pleased by the news of intruders at the door. He didn’t know their faces. He didn’t know their intentions. His hackles were up. Yet, some part of him was buzzing inside, vibrating with anticipation, because… he’d been waiting for this.
Carnage was his. It belonged to him. He had crowned himself King of Ultraviolence--he’d buried his teeth in the red strap, the very core of what Carnage stood for. He’d defeated the Ultraviolent Goddess in a display of true violence that would shake the souls of the Legion for years to come--and he’d beaten down the weak-willed cockroaches who had come chasing after it following that. It was a crimson beacon now that called forth only the most vicious challengers. It brought them to him so he could sate the hunger he was made to feel--what his war-born alter ego was made to feel.
Endless hunger for the bloodiest battles.
War between the ropes.
The monster smiled at him in the mirror. The muzzle concealed it, but Kane knew it was there. He could feel it on his own lips, involuntary and crooked.
Bloody and howling…
The wolf is at the door, little man.
Doesn’t it rattle you raw? Can you feel the ache?
“Yes,” Kane muttered, staring steady into his own eyes.
“I can.”
I can.
I can.
I can survive this. I can. I can.
I can get through this even if I need to crawl.
I will survive this.
I will.
I will.
These thorns can’t stick in my skin. These roses can’t cage me.
She never liked roses.
She liked lavender... and chrysanthemums. Happiness and devotion. Love, longevity and joy.
When I find her again,
I’ll weave her a beautiful crown.
The Carnage Arena is dark, save for the lights above the arena itself; only a few of them are on, illuminating the canvas below in a wicked warm light. The shadows of cage bars are strewn outward across the floor, reaching toward the seats like spindly fingers that would grasp the attention of the Legion if not for their absence. This is not any cage--the bars are old, bent and tinged with rust. Weapons are forced through the uneven bars--a rake, a pipe, a dented aluminum bat. Chains lie twisted across a crooked door on damaged hinges. Nails protrude from some of the corners. In some places, there are dark stains where old blood had never been scrubbed away.
This is the Rat Cage.
It had seen action only twice before: once within the walls of Carnage’s home, and once beneath the Pavilion. This horrorcraft is the Lab Rat King’s preferred stipulation. It is an environment he thrives in; it lends itself to his repertoire, and forces his opponent to fight close and personal, where he prefers to be. It had become rather well-known to the Legion that the Lab Rat King despises chasing his prey.
Tonight, King stands atop his rusted creation; he is dressed in his ring gear, his red and black boots planted on the closed-in cage roof. His signature, the crowned rat, gleams in gold on the hip of his blood-red trunks, stretched taut over the borderline-frightful swell of muscle in his thighs. His right arm is covered by a sleeve in the same colour, which conceals most of the darkened veins that spread from his inner elbow, and his ever-present muzzle covers the lower half of his scarred face. The red-leather Ultraviolence Championship belt gleams against his abdomen, a testament to his conquest of the canvas below. At such an angle, the distortion of his figure seems even more extreme--his waist is too narrow, his chest too broad, his spine too long. It seems to curve upward and roll forward, giving him a vulture-like presence above the arena.
His amber eyes catch the warm light above his head, however, somehow making them seem even sharper in the dim. He is no scavenger. Kane King is a predator.
“Tempessssst.”
The mutant laughs; his voice is low, husky as ever, and resonant within the walls of the empty arena.
“Mmm… strange ghost. Suffered Storm. Welcome to my war; the site of my most bloody coronation. What hurricane possesses you? What lighting, wind and rain will you bring to my perilous pit that could possibly knock the gilding from my skull?”
King glances down at the canvas, and lifts his eyes with a cock of his head. The way he moves is… too fluid. It’s as though he considers every muscle, a deliberate purpose in every motion… and yet, his fingers twitch, curling into his palms only to flex outward again in lust for something to crush.
“Do you know the bodies I’ve broken here? Do you know the wreckage I’ve created so that I could climb it to the top? Do you know what happens when you starve a rat and drop it into hell, and the only escape is… up?”
There’s a growl in his voice. He kicks the cage roof beneath him, making the deathly contraption creak.
“Mmmmmgh… maybe you’ve ssssseen it. Maybe you’ve taken the time to turn back the time and observe; what else to do with a Lab Rat? What else to do but watch, and see what he can take, and see what he can do--especially when driven by a desperation so deep that you’d drown in the salty sea of it yourself? Make NO MISTAKE, burned boy… you have never stared into the eyes of Death like ME. You have been seared by flame and broken by your enemies, pushed too far. You have stood again from it with scars… so I know there is no coward’s blood in the portrait of who you are. But you have never been… tested.
“Not like the Rat.”
Shifting his weight, King takes a step back and wraps his hand around the central support bar suspending the cage. He begins to unwind a chain from it, the links clinking and scraping against each other as he does.
“To be tested so thoroughly… for so long… builds a resilience, a RAGE in us that cannot be matched by a man. Only a monster. Are you a monster? Are you sure?”
Another low laugh rumbles from deep in King’s chest. He continues to unwind the chain.
“Yesssss… you look like one. You wear a face not your own; a facsimile of a face, pale and hollow. You speak from a pit of tar, you hide your eyes to hide your humanity. But that’s just it, little mouse… it’s not your face.”
The chain falls from the support post, hanging from King’s hand. He winds the links around his palm, feeling the weight of the metal.
“I wonder why… you scour yourself of your scars. Ssssuch a conundrum. Are you burdened by shame? Do you wish to withhold the satisfaction from those who are to blame? The skin is twisted, blistered, kissed by unkind flame… and yet you choose to bury it. You pile this pale plaster over your true mask… over the story of your ssssurvival. You choose not to embrace the beast your burdens have sculpted of you. And that makes you weak.”
He looks up, pulling the chain taut between his hands. Slowly he kneels to the cage roof, beginning to fasten one end to the bars.
“Take a good look, Suffered Storm. Take in the tale my fraught frame feeds you. Let it wwwwarn you of what’s to come. What hell have I walked to be left so tattered and torn? What trials and tribulations have left me so worn? And how am I still standing here with blood in my teeth, rrrready for more? What do you have to bring me that I haven’t survived before?”
King reaches behind himself, picking up a small metal object; upon closer inspection, it seems to be a round tin of… paint. The unbound end of the chain finishes with a hook. He drives the hook into the top of the paint can with one hand, easily puncturing it with the force of the blow.
“Even so… there are nightmares beneath my scarred skin you couldn’t possibly perceive.”
He removes the hook from the paint can, smearing some of the paint against his chest. The paint, deep red, drips slowly down the violet-bruised and blushed flesh. He then drags the point of the hook on the opposite side, cutting himself open.
But he doesn’t bleed.
Not really.
Blood wells to the surface, of course; however, the moment it makes contact with the air, it appears to congeal, taking on a consistency even thicker than the paint. It starts to darken, clotting at an impossible speed in a colour that looks anything but healthy.
“This is a warning,” he rumbles, staring into the eyes of the Legion--of his opponent. “A WARNING from the King of Lab Rats. The Monster of Carnage. I know you love to bite. You love to scratch; much like the starving rat in the pit, you will scrape your way up to survive. But if you make me bleed… I’m not the only thing that will riddle your guts with regret. Be careful, Suffered Storm… because I won’t be.”
With that, King punctures the other side of the paint can; he leaves the hook in it and drops it through the bars of the cage roof. It stops short with a snap, pouring a thick, viscous stream of paint down onto the canvas.
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
King growls, a smile in his voice as he rises to his feet.
“This one is going to eat you alive.”
The eyes of the Legion pan upward from the arena, down from the lights. As the full view of the ring comes into frame, an image of Tempest’s mask becomes apparent, drawn in thick black lines across the entire canvas; the can of deep red paint continues to pour, slowly filling the black mouth of the mask, and spilling downward from the apron onto the arena floor.
The image flashes to black, the image of a bleached-white crowned rat skull flickering across the dark before disappearing with a snap.