Post by The Hannahverser on Apr 16, 2016 23:54:17 GMT
Frailty
At the risk of spilling trade secrets, Greedy Pupil’s Moving Carnival, and the Pandemonium Theatre, has a lot of hidden doors, secret passages, and a ton of ways to get lost if you’re clever. When Alfred Candy and Henry Huckabee had signed that fateful contract that would bring an enigmatic masked “man” to Evolution Wrestling, the first thing Deus did was learn the environment. The ins. The outs. The tricks. And traps.
And then, week-in and week out, she used every little scrap of knowledge she’d gleaned to appear out of thin air, and disappear just as she’d come. Like Magic. Like a ghost, an elemental force that blew through Evolution Wrestling leaving a trail of damage to marvel at.
And that’s the trade secret.
She knew more about that carnival than anyone did. Because she studied. That’s why she could control lights, and atmosphere, and the entire setting. She made that environment hers. Much to everyone’s chagrin.
And for that, they wanted her head.
And they got it.
Because Deus made a mistake.
Any magician can tell you that a magic trick is only magic if no one understands how it works. With every step Deus took, more and more people started to watch and wonder how and why she was doing it. The more she revealed, the more they understood, the more they understood, the closer Candy and Huckabee came to knowing how to stop such a force. Then they used it against her, set their champion on her, and made her pay.
And that’s why we’re here now.
It’s not a trade secret that human refuse has to go somewhere after it’s flushed.
She splashed face first through that sewer grate a heap of exhaustion and defeat right into the water of the Mexican sewer system.
Splash.
The mask submerged and for a moment she drowned. She sunk like a stone. Still in that mask, and that suit, and just held her breath let the pain of bruised and battered muscles and bones and sinew overtake her in a bath of shit.
It didn’t last.
She screamed angry bubbles, that sounded like deep, guttural sounds through the voice modulator built into the mask, and she sat up to gather her bearings.
Then, for 10 miles she walked through that underground sewer. Waist deep in piss, and excrement, and dead animals and God knows whatever else that made that 10 mile walk feel like a million.
She walked through that, shambling at first like a death march, blankly imagining she recognized faces from Evolution Wrestling in the refuse. There’s that fucking cotton candy carny obsessed with ass, there’s one of those Alex’s, the enterprising Asian bitch, Candy-Huckabee with a peanut still stuck in the log of his face. She crushed the shitty face of Dpi between her gloved fingers and waded, and moved what felt like an inch every hour and thought one solitary, lonely thing:
So this is how it ends.
But it didn’t end.
I told you: for 10 miles that sewer stretched on till she made what felt like a random guess upwards through a sewer grate into that one run down warehouse somewhere in Mexico where the Dei, (followers of Deus) had agreed to meet in the event that “Deus” didn’t show up for any prolonged period of time.
Maybe life is fair?
A consolation prize. She stepped into that impromptu gathering of what must’ve been a 100 Deus-masked and garbed people gathering together and felt a momentary celebration wash over and distance her exhausted mind and body from a grand total of two ass-kickings, and the subsequent bullshit she’d walked through to get to this point.
Needless to say the proverbial music stopped when she entered. All Deus masks on her as she stood unexpectedly in the middle of the group, standing beside an open sewer grate, outfit dripping shit and piss and whatever else.
Silence washed over the moment. The smell made those closest back off and regard this Deus with confusion and bewilderment. She sniffed, finally smelling herself, then looked around feeling a creeping sense of humiliation set in as her finger tapped against the side of her leg in what amounted to the only movement anywhere.
Deus: “Helluva day, in’it?”
Her voice crackled through the damaged voice modulator in her mask. Then she walked, parting the people like Moses did the red sea, all Deus masks regarding her as she moved sorely towards a dilapidated attached washroom and closed the door.
The warehouse’s walls were mostly smashed. Boxes and rags and empty beer bottles littered the corners and told the story of a rundown building that once was likely a bustling plant that made… who the fuck cares. Paint chipped, broken glass and holes in every interior wall made privacy impossible. When she closed the door to the washroom behind her, Deus masks peeked in through the hole-y walls at her as she swallowed hard and looked right into the mirror at herself.
Deus: “Shit.”
The voice garbled and muffled and sounded hollow. Her shoulder’s slumped seeing the grimy mask and the mottled and disgusting costume. Her hands gripped the grimy counter top and she stared, and everything else dropped away.
The other Deus’ peeked in, the door creaked open to let still more faces watch as she suddenly, and fitfully tore the mechanic’s suit off and tossed aside where she could see the tight, confining binder condensing her torso, concealing any features of who she was even beneath that. Padding, and disguise. She gritted her teeth amidst a sea of staring Deus masks.
Deus: “You’re wearing a fucking binder to hide your tits?”
And it came off and was tossed out the door recklessly. Bodies parted and watched it skid away then peered back inside. Before them, in a Deus mask and biker boots was a fit-figured woman in plain white panties and bra staring at herself in the mirror.
She straightened up amidst a grimace and so many aches to see what it all looked like underneath the façade.
After appraising moments, she concluded:
Deus: “You’re weak.”
Her fist tightened, and then slammed her forearm into her side with a loud angry thump. One of those other Deus’ winced to watch this unexpected event unfold.
He was Deus Follower number 86, and looked around at the other onlookers as if vaguely getting a sense at the strange level of voyeurism taking place here, and figuring, ‘hey, this is kinda weird, what are we all doing here?’, and removed his mask.
It was Jerry Simons.
You don’t know who that is.
And why would you?
Even he doesn’t know who Jerry Simons is at this point and his voice chimed in nervously.
Jerry Simons: "Ahem. Mr… Sorry… Missus Deus, Sir… uhm…. What are we supposed to do now?”
Again. And again. Deus stared at herself in the mirror and slammed her arm angrily into her side with a dull thud that resonated off the walls.
Deus: “WEAK.”
The garbled voice crackled and barely registered as sound despite how loud and angry she must’ve said it beneath the mask. Glaring, angry eyes lurked behind that mask as it looked into the mirror. Then, her bare fists smashed at the mirror. It didn’t crack. The mirror merely shook on the wall.
Again. Barely a jostle. Like it'd been touched by a light breeze, if that.
And her whole arm trembled, and she felt pain shoot up it forcing her to grip it to herself and wince in agony after trying to smash it and she stumbled in sheer agony out of the washroom.
Deus: “Sonofa…”
She glared at all the masks watching her.
Deus: “Will One of you..." *Wince* "...break this...." *Heavy panting* "fucking mirror for me?”
She stood there panting heavily out of breath. And the sea of Deus masks stared at her uncertainly.
Deus: “Ohhh... You heard what I said.”
Nothing moved. No one stirred. Just silent, judging stares. It enraged her to the point of snapping the metallic mask off her face and chucking it into the crowd with an angry scream that was now only her voice without a hint of modulation, distortion, or disguise.
Seconds. Moments. She looked at the mask she’d just flung and felt a painful tingle of understanding hit her somewhere hard enough in the brain to make her face twitch.
The other Deus’ looked at that mask which had parted the crowd into a gaping semi-circle where the mask looked like some cracked sun they had all been orbiting around. Then all eyes turned back to her, and a din set in.
...: “It’s just a chick…”
...: "Nothing special about her..."
She straightened and watch that realization set into the crowd of onlookers who slowly started to gather closer around her with a growing murmur rippling through the throng.
...: “… not even really Deus…”
...: “…what do we do with her…?”
...: “…get a piece of that ass…”
Their proximity showed no sign of ebb, she found herself backing up till she felt someone’s body stopping her. She looked back at another Deus and knew she was surrounded.
Deus: “Now, fellas, remember… Deus is more than gender--”
Arms suddenly trapped her aching limbs in a full-nelson. And more bodies crowded in. Hands suddenly molested her. Countless Deus masks crowded in around her in some twisted nightmare. And she realized most emphatically amidst this new amount of pain she hadn’t known for some time that life isn’t fair. Ever.
Her muscles were drained and sapped. She’d fought off one shithead, taken down by two more at the behest of some other shithead only to walk for miles through more shit… and now this. Swallowed up by a horde of men wearing HER fucking costume… and literally fucking her.
Her body ached, could barely move, and turned numb.
And all she could hear was some distant 8th grade history teacher jokingly quoting Winston Churchill in a class long since forgotten, “If you’re going through hell. Keep going.”
And that’s exactly what it was.
Hellish minutes stretched long before she could muster the strength to kick her legs up into the chest of the nearest man in a Deus mask and push him off her, struggling like a rapid animal that just realized how angry and rabid it actually was and fought to free her arms and lash out at everyone around her with furious punches and kicks.
Bodies shuffled and swayed in a grisly dance as she used every ounce of strength she had left to fend these so-called followers of Deus off before they realized this naked woman before them wasn’t going to submit freely. And then they did their own punching, and their own kicking.
Heaven, or Deus, or whoever she was suddenly found herself on the receiving end of a most twisted, and unpleasant ass-kicking. One of the Deus followers grabbed her arms and tossed her painfully into a wall. Another fired painful punches into her jaw, and side, and ribs. More kicks.
Amidst this raging inferno of unfairness, someone had plucked that previously unbreakable mirror off the wall and smashed it onto her. One hell of an unlucky consolation this had become. Small miracles and all that.
She fought back.
Make no mistake.
She fought harder than any woman in her position ever has, and then some.
She fought back in spite of every muscle reminding her of the night she’d already had.
She fought back in spite of all the losses and setbacks this night had already given her.
She fought back in spite of the nagging knowledge that each of these men, at one time, had worshiped what she stood for.
She fought back until one of the biggest of them blocked one of her kicks, grabbed her ankle and threw her so hard through a wall that she landed with a final, loud, painful crash onto a pile of skids.
When the smoke finally cleared she was alone with nothing left to fight. Naked in a pile of rubble, reeking of shit, piss, bruises, blood, and semen.
A pile of disaster.
She sniffled.
No tears.
Just numb.
Because this, somehow, in some strange logic known only to her in that moment seemed like nothing compared to what had made Deus in the first place.
Because where you've been determines where you're going.
And her shoulders slumped. And her body ached. And blood ran from her nose.
And she just lay there, looking blankly at the floor and asked the dust around her,
Deus: “What the hell do I do now?”
