Revelations
 Obsidian  2017/1/14 0:02
 1525  2
At this point I have as much clearance in the Mantis' empire as any council member and nobody bats an eyelash when my fighter comes screaming through the main starport on a bee line trajectory for the palace. As I look down I see the place is surrounded but that the troops are holding their advancement. I leap from the cockpit and land just at the command station outside. Troops move aside as I make my way tot the palace entrance. The sounds of battle ring from inside and and the earth beneath my feet rumbles. As I reach for the massive palace doors I take note of dozens of dead bodies strewn about like debris in a storm. They never stood a chance against whatever is inside and I may not either but I have to try. I make a mad dash to the wards the explosions and gunfire and the closer I get the sicker I get bodies are strewn everywhere. Every defense in the place is torn to shreds. At the very moment my fingers touch the throne room door there's an explosion and my suit registers massive overloads in energy. My armor takes it bur it's not good enough. I feel the impact of the explosions even through this updated armor and I'm sent hurtling backwards. I'm stunned even if only for a few seconds but it's enough. I hear the muffled monologue of the Black Mantis.
"Yeah you got the skills , but I have done this dance before. Being who you are you know you're not the first to try this stunt. Though I will say you're definitely the most devious."
As I focus my visions I see the shape of another man dressed in the Imperial Black and Gold and when he speaks I cannot believe my ears. His voice is that of the Black Mantis himself.
"You know all too well what I am capable of and I have over a millennia to prepare for you, and believe me I have prepared well. Today you die and I WILL take back my throne!"
What? As I rise unsteadily, and my vision clears the scene is ghastly. The council members, each nearly as powerful as the Black Mantis himself have been tossed around like rag dolls. They all lay unconscious, but alive. Had this man killed them they would've simply moved their essences to a new body and been right back to battle completely refreshed. This way however, he has taken them out of the fight. In the center of the room on a pedestal is a large glowing blue gem roughly the size of a man's head which appears to be the source of whatever is keeping them down. It doesn't take much to figure out this is the guy who attack the Black Mantis the first time. However, now he's has everyone down. As the two combatants circle each other I can little else but watch. I look around for Spydra and find her not far from where I landed after the explosion.
"Kid, wake up. WE have to move back."
A quick scan of her injuries reveals a severed spinal cord and a several broken bones. Her wounds are serious but not life threatening, she'll be fine in a couple of days if we survive this. I start to lift her up and that's when I realize that the servos in my armor are about shot. She's not exactly heavy though so I manage. Returning to the room I am witness to one of the most epic fights any man has ever had the privilege of seeing. The form an grace of the Black Mantis and his foe move are something I will never forget. A thousand times I have wanted to knock that smug attitude from his face and only do I realize how insanely ridiculous that thought has been. As the two gods do battle the whole building shudders as does everything for miles. The palace itself must be very specially made otherwise the foundations would've gave under the first attack and we'd all be standing in a crater. My armor begins repairing itself and I start to feel a tad safer but I'm still hiding behind what remains of the massive pillars of the palace hall. Fire, Lightning, and magics more ancient than the Elven races themselves flies furiously, along with sword blows and martial arts skills I can't begin to describe. The two men are so evenly matched it's no wonder I thought The Black Mantis was behind everything. Then the monologue starts and I realize..he kinda was.
"You are a shabby imitation of the real thing pretender."
Yells Mantis smugly
"...and you're not the first to try this, I have put down clones, and shapeshifters, Magical mirrors and even versions of me from other realities you'll be no different?"
"Because I am none of those things. What separates us is not a dimension, or an inferior genetic code, or even an entire reality...what separates us is that YOU made it out of that worm hole and I didn't. Not for a thousand years, both Reaper and I both were trapped there and left to rot. But now MY Reaver, stands before you, master of death."
I'm not sure of the significance of Reaper, or Reaver or whatever name he's going by but what the new guy said has Mantis taken aback a little. Then the Black Mantis himself make the significance all too clear.
"What? Impossible. No one can defeat Death, I know I've tried. It's how I got where I ma today."
"You mean your Deal, where you know when the time of your death is coming? That's little arrangement was the first thing I took care of. It's why Reaver stands there silent and waiting. He's waiting for one of us to die! I took away your, MY greatest advantage and it was well worth it."
My greatest advantage? Clones alternate versions...By the gods...Is he? The Black Mantis? Some twisted version of himself? It all makes sense sure but how?
"Black Mantis you will die here today. There will be no more Black Mantis only the Black Scorpion will remain and I will be rid of you once and for all. I watched you for centuries, running this empire like a spoiled child...I couldn't believe that was me I was staring at...so at the very least I want to thank you for opening my eyes. I never realized how precarious my sanity was until I watched you lose yours."
"YOu think me insane pretender? I have made this empire strong, quadrillions upon quintillions of ships hundreds of whole realities are under my command. The powers I can bring to bear on any single reality..."
"Are ridiculous! Who needs that much power? Why? You're a power hungry madman and you play with lives lives as a child playing with toys. How many have killed for the sake of your power? How many lives were simply thrown aside so you could be the greatest?" billions, trillions? You stand on a blood stain that stretches across infinity. I ma here to end that."
Beneath my helmet my jaw is agape. I had never truly contemplated the level of Mantis's brutality. I never knew his lust for power. Sure I knew he had ungodly amount of resources and raw power but I never contemplated the lengths which he must have gone through to get it all. Surely he had to have killed people even billions which I was vaguely aware of, but trillions?"
"Hah! I have wiped out entire realities! You are hardly a match for me."
Magic flies from their fingers and erupts from every direction as they battle, my sensors are very nearly overwhelmed by it all and I realize I'm in a very bad place to be. It takes almost no time for my systems to reboot and I start making my way to the council members while these two try intently to kill one another. As I begin dragging the others to safety it occurs to me that they haven't unleashed any of their legendary cosmic powers. Power I know fort a fact they possess.
The battle continues to rage above and around me and while I'm sure it's not the case they seem oblivious to my presence. Either they don't care, or they don't think me significant enough to bother with...probably the latter.
I get the last of the council out and start to go back in then I feel a hand on my shoulder. Raven has come to.
"Obsidian, the Black Mantis. He's the one who attacked us."
"Saywhatnow?"
I am of course totally stunned by her words.
"He's completely lost his mind. Karr knew this and confided in us."
"Whadafug?"
"The Black Mantis has been dangerously unstable for countless eons. But recently, he's just lost it. It all started with you."
"Um...what?"
"You were like a prize...he wanted to see if he could get you to be like me and Karr."
"Who the hell is Karr? That guy in there going toe to toe with the self-proclaimed "Multiverse's Greatest Assassin? Is that who you mean? Why the hell does the Black Mantis even care about me? I have never understood that."
Raven removes her mask revealing a beauty I forgot she possessed, at once I forget where I am and can only see her eyes. She reaches up and removes my helmet. Her gentle hands are warm as she touches my cheek, and the pain from ten thousand years memories that comes next is so intense. I feel my head will shatter. Raven shows me the entire history of the Black Mantis and herself and the entire empire. I barely feel the tears roll down my face and I watch the atrocities he's committed in the name of POWER. I see time and again, the black Mantis fighting versions of himself that were often much weaker than he. He even somehow unlinked himself from time and killed his parents to assure no one could ever go back in time and destroy him, he has killed every alternate reality version of himself that he has ever encountered...save two. The woman who now holds my face in her hands...and....me? As violently as this vision began so too does it end as I recoil in horror at the revelation that he and I are the same person. With tear filled eyes I stare back at yet another version of..me? Raven, Black Mantis, Karr, and myself...all the same person? NO wonder, all these years, he was just using me as a game? That bastard, that complete wretched bastard! Save the universe? Of course he thought I could do it...over and over, and over....because with a little help I could be just like him. Or worse yet, was he just trying to see if I could become a threat to him? Was he weighing my fate...my very life in his hand?
"NO...no no no no no NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
I grab my hemet and put it back on...I may not be the one to kill him but I can watch ...him...die!.
As I walk back into the palace with renewed purpose the two men look exhausted...and are breathing heavily. It's a stalemate. Black Manits looks back at me and laughs.
"Well, Black Scorpion it seems there's one last card for me to play. Obsidian, do me the honor of finishing off this upstart."
"What?"
How the hell does he think it's even remotely possible?
"You have always been able to hide from anyone, and I have given you the power to destroy gods. use it and destroy this fake, pretender."
Mantis is right...as I walk towards the two nearly exhausted assassins...assassins...like me. In a blink I'm invisible, no one can detect me, by any means, I am the master of shadows with this armor, you can't see me, or hear me, no one can sense me, no danger sense works against me, no psionics, not even magic will give me away. Even mighty cosmic beings cannot detect my presence...Absorbium is wonderful. And as I plunge my sword through the Black Mantis's demonic, unforgiving, manipulative, wretched, evil, psychotic heart. I am pleased to say I'm the man who killed the Multiverse's greatest assassin.
"It's not murder when you kill yourself I say...it suicide."
Blood spews from beneath his mask, and he and I both know what comes next but I ca't let him die without knowing why. As I feel his divine power flow into me I lean close and through clenched teeth born of decades of him manipulations, and the loss I have suffered as a result of his whims I simply say
"Whatever made you think I would not turn my blade on you? I heard your exchange with this man...I know what you've done to get where you were..Raven was kind enough to show me everything you sonofabitch..Rot in hell. Just as the last of his divinity enters my body he lets out a chuckle.
"I always get the last laugh." He says as his body begins to fade away.
""NO!" Karr screams as he tosses me aside,
"I won't let you do it!"
But as he grabs hold of the Black Mantis's costume it's too late and he simply kneels there holding the empty suit in his hands.
"He's gone."
"Good riddance."
"NO mortal, he's not dead, he's done the one thing I was certain he wouldn't."
"What is that exactly."
"He ascended his consciousness and became one with the universe."
"That's a bad thing?"
"It means some day he may return, though no one ever has."
Well at least it's over...for now.
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The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.
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| pijon |
Posted: 2017/1/16 11:45 Updated: 2017/1/16 11:45 |
Moderator   Joined: 2006/7/18 From: United States Posts: 6363 |
 Re: Revelations Well, I sure didn't see that coming! Very twisty and cool! I guess I should have guessed that you wouldn't play fair at this whodoneit game... pulling out new unrevealed aspects of this reality which would make it impossible to guess correctly!  Great story though, tense, twisty, action-packed and surprising!  |
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| Dragondack |
Posted: 2017/1/15 22:23 Updated: 2017/1/15 22:23 |
The Great Eternal Dragon   Joined: 2004/2/9 From: Edmonton,Alberta,Canada Posts: 11277 |
Re: Revelations |
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