113

 

113.  Masters of Insanity

 

Frank moved the receiver of the phone up to his mouth within Grayson's office. As he performed this seemingly normal action, he was monitored dutifully by Saito Hajime, the perm-sporting man in a suit who had just came out from a portal. Tension filled the air, and Saito shifted his feet a bit, clearly growing restless. Frank sucked saliva through his teeth to wet his parched tongue.

 

"This is Frank Arazia. Are you there, Ed?"

 

Muffled voices could be heard from the other side. "I wasn't expecting you to call so soon, Frank."

 

It sounded like Ed alright, but he also sounded all too calm. "Hey, tell me you have some idea of what's going on here, man."

 

"I do." Ed did not answer in the same friendly tone. "Grayson's explained everything to me. He showed so much...much more than I was prepared for."

 

Frank felt his throat dry up.

 

"We were oblivious to so much, Frank," Edward continued. "Much that, had we known, could have saved us from so much pain. And now that I know the truth, I'm stronger than I ever was before."

 

"Ed!" Frank screamed into the phone. "He brainwashed you! Just like he did to Naomi, just like..."

 

"Oh no," Edward replied. "I have more clarity now than I ever had before."

 

"He killed your wife, goddammit!" Frank roared. "What the hell's wrong with you?!"

 

"We were nothing but pawns to Victoria," Edward Darcouver claimed. "But now, I've been granted a chance to make a difference."

 

"Come on!" Frank shook his head

 

*************

 

furiously, refusing to accept what was coming out from Averyl's mouth. "No... no... no!"

 

"We Albavitreans were born from the fallen angels," Averyl continued. "Those who were corrupted by the chaos that existed in the darkness before the coming of the light. We are the unholy..."

 

"And Eden is of the light?"

 

"Yes." Averyl shook his head. "Your mother kept you two distanced for a reason. Eden may not be our enemy yet, but until she makes a decision, we must be cautious..."

 

"She's not going to want to kill us!" Vance's hands curled into fists. "After everything we've been through together?! Come on, Averyl!"

"Regardless of what we think or want," Averyl said powerfully, "the decision is hers to make."

 

"Is that why there are no Albavitreans left?" Vance's eyes widened. "Eden's people, the Apostles or whatever...they killed us all?"

 

"The land of Tartarus," Averyl spoke, "where Albavitreans dwelt eons ago, disappeared... it and all of its inhabitants were supposedly erased by the Church's unfathomable power, and only a few families were able to escape."

 

Vance nodded slowly and thought for a moment. Then, he came across another question. "And what about Grayson? What is he? Why couldn't my mom beat him?"

 

Hearing this, Averyl's eyes darkened, and he looked down on Vance in grave silence.

 

"What?" Vance stomped his foot in irritation. "You just told me Eden might come to kill me, what could possibly be worse?"

 

Nervousness flushed Averyl's white face. "Honestly...I'm both excited and frightened about what knowing it may do to you."

 

But Vance's curiousness was out of control, summoning a string of horrible images in his mind. "Well, I have to know now."

 

Averyl bit his lower lip. "Fine, I'll tell you...but remember Vance, I am your ally, to the very end."

 

Vance swallowed. "Just say it,

 

*************

 

Ed." Frank cast a glance over to Saito, who had his arms crossed and was looking rather impatient. "Tell me what's really going on here. I know this isn't the real you!"

 

"It was hard for me to accept..." Vance's father spoke. "It was so unbearable that I tried to kill myself. I was just unable to fathom it. But now that I've had time to let it all sink in, it all makes perfect sense. I know my true place in the universe now."

 

"Stop beating around the bush, Ed. I'm prepared. Just say what you want to say."

 

"So be it," Vance's father echoed. "Listen carefully. This is the truth about God, Eden, Grayson

 

*************

 

Lee, Victoria Vance, and Edward Darcouver..." Averyl walked toward Vance, bent down toward his ear, and began to speak in a very low voice. Unthinkable words

 

*************

 

razed Frank's ears, causing the middle-aged man's knees to shiver. One arm stretched out for support as he fell to the ground, mouth wrenched open in horror, eyes boggled in disbelief. A suffocating feeling overcame his body, forcing a dry, quavering moan

 

*************

 

out from Vance's gut as Averyl finished speaking. With a primal roar, he knocked Averyl from his body and grit his teeth in abhorrence. Never before in his life had Vance felt such agony. He didn't simply want to die – he wanted to wipe the world clean away.

 

Losing all control, Vance whipped his head up to the sky and pierced it with a scream. With his head tilted up, he angled his irisless eyes as far down as they would go and pointed a finger at Averyl. "You're... lying..."

Averyl slowly shook his head.

 

"YOU'RE LYING!"

 

Space fluctuated as the Albavitrean set his power aflame, throttling the cliffside. Far beneath, Winslow, Bruce, and Wendy dodged the disintegrating rubble. Vance's cries of agony reached their ears, and the three of them craned their necks high up to the peak, where a dark purple vortex swirled.

 

The shrieks continued as a gaping hole in space opened up beneath Vance, locking his ankles in and fixating the youth in the sky while the hills beneath him crumbled, opening a crater in the West Virginia woodland.

 

When his footing disappeared, Averyl materialized eight propellers from his back and floated somberly into the sky. Below, the muscles and veins within Vance's body pulled taut against his skin, pulsating. He glared up at Averyl and repeated himself a third time.

 

"You're...lying..."

 

"I haven't told you a single lie." Averyl shook his head. "Remember, you wanted this, Vance."

 

"Liaaaar!" Vance leapt out from the void and tore into Averyl, and soon the two dark men were locked in a furious fistfight. With every blow, a smash rattled the valley, ringing out a symphony of destruction. As they fell toward the surface, Vance attempted to overpower his uncle, while Averyl returned every blow with a smirk, enjoying his nephew's frustration.

 

With Vance's next scream of anger came a psynergy beam erupting from his throat. Averyl just barely ripped his body away in time before metapsynergy sliced straight through his shoulder.

 

Averyl let Vance go into a free fall, spun around, and materialized a golden wrecking ball. Before it could slam into Vance's back, he kicked it away with lightning-fast reflexes, increasing his momentum as he neared the end of his descent.

 

But as he hit the ground, Vance padded his legs with metapsynergy and kicked back upward, reversing the force contained within his body. Flying back into the air, he spun around again and approached Averyl like a searing missile. Averyl sped backwards, materializing sheet after sheet of carbon in an attempt to test his nephew's strength, but a gleaming purple tinge on Vance's fingers sliced through everything in his path.

 

Finally, they connected. An ear-shattering snap rocked the sky, and crackles rippled through the atmosphere, tearing holes in the fabric of Earth itself. After a frozen moment, Vance and Averyl were both thrown backwards in opposite directions, replaced by voids of deflected power.

 

As soon as he regained control, Vance created a portal which swallowed his body and repositioned it right behind Averyl. There, he caught the phantom's body and, for the first time in his life, rendered his uncle immobile. Averyl reflexively materialized knives out from his back, but they were all eaten up by the thick barrier of metapsynergy covering his nephew's body.

 

They plummeted to the ground a second time, and in one last ditch attempt, Averyl shot tiny scalpels out to cut open a square void beneath them. In a flash, the two slipped through to another dimension.

 

As his body finished rearranging, Vance slid out onto an icy platform suspended over a sea of glaciers. Averyl leapt out from the hole with finesse, then quickly sealed it up before turning back to his pupil.

 

"Looks like you've outgrown your playpen, little one."

 

Now free from Earth's psynergy vacuum, Vance felt metapsynergy surging through his body at an unbelievable rate as he picked himself up. It was empowering, but did nothing to alleviate the anger bubbling up from inside.

 

"Go ahead, relieve your stress on me, Vance." Averyl removed his cloak, revealing a leather bodysuit covered in straps, and chains that confined the man's lanky figure. "I've been waiting for this."

 

"Tell me it isn't true..." Vance shook his head. "It can't be...Grayson

 

*************

 

watched the twilight wash over the plains of Houston. Dusty soil turned dark gold as the moon rose over the skyline. All was tranquil, save for the murmurs of oil rigs churning in and out of the earth.

 

Slowly, he turned from the window and stared at his two trophies. On the left side of his new office, the corpse of Sasuke floated quietly in a Regeneration Tank, which hummed softly as it kept the body in pristine condition.

On the right side of Grayson's office was another Regeneration Tank. Inside floated a head connected to the mutilated half of a torso, held in place by the wires and tubes that had been attached to its gaping wounds. The vital signs weren't great, but the subject's brain was still in tact, and that was imperative.

 

Grayson walked over to that tank and pressed a button. An electric shockwave rushed through the tank and its fluid, jolting the head to consciousness. The specimen blinked, then opened his mouth wide in horror.

 

"Good morning, Doctor..." Grayson whispered to the head of Nord Phileas. "I imagine you aren't feeling too well."

 

Phileas darted his eyes around as he attempted to fathom his new condition. "What the hell?! Grayson!!"

 

"Please, Doctor." Grayson frowned. "Lower your voice. I'm right here."

 

"What have you done?!" Phileas pleaded. "Grayson, what in God's name have you done?!"

 

"Oh, it was not in God's name," Grayson chuckled. "I assure you of that."

 

"I'm alive..." Phileas moaned. "I'm alive?!"

 

"Something like that," Grayson answered. "You somehow managed to crawl beyond the vicinities of the tournament complex before Van Kaen's bomb went off. You were only barely breathing when he found you."

 

"That boy..." Phileas rasped. "His blood...It's all his fault! I had no idea such a power could even exist!"

 

"The boy with antimatter blood," Grayson said with a smirk. "Yes, I encountered him as well. Such an amusing ability."

 

Phileas peered around the room. "Wh-where are we, Grayson?"

"Earth," Grayson explained. "I'm going to destroy this dimension, and I need your help to do it."

 

The head froze. "Excuse me?"

 

Ignoring Phileas' bewilderment, Grayson gestured over to the corpse of Sasuke. "How long do you think it will take you to sync your psychic link with a body upon devouring only its brain?"

 

"What?" Phileas looked positively horrified. "Have you lost your mind, Grayson? A head transplant is completely out of the question. I couldn't–"

 

"Don't misunderstand," Grayson said. "All I want is your brain."

 

"My brain?!" Phileas sputtered. "But even if I absorbed the brain of the old host and synchronized my own mind with it, there are still so many factors that could push for rejection!"

 

"Well then, you'd better hope Lady Luck is on your side." Grayson's eyes flashed. "Since you're nothing but a head now, I'd say this tank could only hold you for a couple more days, at most. You have no choice, doctor."

 

Phileas' mind reeled. "Wait a second, Grayson! Did you ever recover the Daughter?"

 

"Yes." Grayson stared down at the head with contempt. "Why do you ask?"

 

"What are you waiting for?!" Phileas shouted. "Infuse her blood into me! It's supposed to give us godlike powers, right?!"

 

"I think not," the Snake said tiredly. "The only reason I kept you alive is because I need someone to operate his body."

 

"Grayson..." Phileas growled. "Think about how much I've done for you!"

 

Grayson shrugged. "You're still alive, aren't you?"

 

"I rebuilt Van Kaen specifically so that he would follow you and no one else. I helped you kill one of my oldest friends. I even played babysitter to those stupid Earthlings of yours, all because you promised I would reap the benefits just like you! We're partners, Grayson! I deserve equal treatment!"

 

"An amusing outlook," Grayson replied, "but horribly skewed."

 

"Damn you, Grayson!" Phileas shrieked. "You son of a bitch!"

 

"Now now..." Grayson cooed. "Cheer up. We're gearing up for what shall be your finest hour, Mephisto."

 

Furious, Phileas watched as Grayson raised his arms and smiled in wide-eyed anticipation.

 

"Together, we shall create a new Zodiac! A new band of puppeteers to orchestrate the collapse of the universe! The dead shall rise, our new puppets will march, and screams of agony will herald our victory. You and I, Nord Phileas, will be lords of the apocalypse."

Next: Hellbound