2013.07.24 - Poor Unfortunate Souls

Patrick shakes his head. "No. You are better off without me without...this is the way it should be. I am sorry." He says before he turns off the bits of his suit that let him cling to walls and drops. His arms snap outwards and the flaps connecting body and limbs spread out letting him catch air and glide.

As Patrick soars away the wind picks up, a chill blows through he night and the stars seem to dim. It must be a storm coming in, black clouds blocking out the skies as the faint lights of the city are left as the only illumination. High atop of the Empire State Building at the highest ledge possible to reach even using superhuman powers the scene plays out, The Iron Spider leaving behind what he had and the man that loved him.

Vorpal stands up, calling out to Patrick as the red and gold figure drops and then glides away.

He would never make it to the apartment in time. Not before Patrick got there, and then left with whatever he wanted to take.

Provided he hadn't done that already before coming here.

The cat lets himself fall to his knees, looking at the city all around him, which suddenly strikes him like a huge abyss threatening to close up.

"... but I love you." There were no eyes up here, only the breeze and a great expanse of nothingness punctuated by dots of light that did little to combat the paralyzing ache that gripped him.

"I don't understand..." Vorpal says... and suddenly shudders at the feeling of the chill wind. Despite being covered in fur, it goes through him like a blade, chilling him to the bone.

"What a heel." The voice comes from almost nowhere, and everywhere at the same time. A slight slithering sound that voice, like equal parts snake and shadow. Also, the voice is vaguely familiar. Take away the slight hoarseness, and the whisper like qualities, and the slight...tin like nature as if it were being auto tuned and then make it a little happier and brighter and it would sound like someone that the Cat has met.

That someone, of course, turns out to be right behind him. Leaning on the large spike coming out of the center of the 4th tallest building in the world is one William 'Billy' Kaplan AKA Wiccan. No longer in his normal costume he is wearing a pure black shirt and pants with the star fields expanded so that they cover the whole thing instead of strips along the sides with a red sash tied at his waist. The cape is no longer that friendly ragged almost poncho like one that could at times give the impression of a favored childhood blanket turned into a costume piece but now a full cloak and hood with black trim and colored a dark blood red, and the circlet that is oddly virtually unchanged.

"I really mean it. The pain, the anguish, it would have been kinder for him to just kill you instead of ripping your heart out and grinding it to dust while you watched him slack jawed and brain frozen."

What was going on? Billy didn't look like that the last time he had seen him.

"... don't talk about him that way!" Vorpal says, turning to face Wiccan. "... what... Billy? why the hell do you say that? He thought he was holding me back... however it may have hurt... " the cat argues back, with the strange haziness of someone who is dreaming, but does not know he is dreaming. "... why would you ever say that about him? You don't even know him!"

"Oh don't I?" Says the young man leaning on the building as if the slightest slip from his perch would not cause him to fall to a rather gruesome to see death. "Gorgeous and perfect and unattainable in every way."

He says before his voice comes again from behind where Vorpal is standing. "Except of course for when he wants something he can't admit to wanting. Something the world does not want him to want so he goes for it with the first person to cling to him in dark and secret places. Then, when he finds the world does not care...off he goes for something better and less high maintenance."

If Vorpal turns to look at the new voice he will find Wiccan this time standing on the same ledge as Vorpal just a little ways down from him with the wind making his new cloak billow rather dramatically.

"It is a story older than time, it has run a groove in reality so deep it would take a miracle to make the needle skip the groove and land on a new song."

The cat's ears lower and his eyes acquired a sad look to them. He takes a step back after looking towards the sound of the voice.

"Wh... you mean that he ... he used me? No..." the cheshire cat blinks and looks away "NO... no. Billy, why are you telling me this? Why are you talking like this? ... you're not like that..." he sighs.

Wiccan shrugs and then looks at the cat serously. "How do you know? We have met what, one time? I am saying it because there is truth in it, and most importantly because a part of you knows this."

The voice one more time suddenly comes from behind the cat again, "We wouldn't be here if that were not true."

This time, when the cat turns they are suddenly no longer on the Empire State Building they are but the very place where Patrick and Keith met the very first time.

"Of course, just because it is true does not mean it has to be real."

Vorpal groans and grabs the sides of his head, shaking it "What the hell... what the hell do you mean? Did you bring me here by magic?" he looks around, bewildered. Wiccan was right... that one meeting they had when he came across as an adorable geek and a very sweet guy... that could have been an act.

Maybe he planted a spell on him. Maybe his plan all along was ...

...what? He couldn't think straight.

Or maybe he was right.

Vorpal lowers his head, looking down at the grass. "...maybe it is true. who could ever love a freak..."

Wiccan puts on a sorrow filled face and nods coming up to Vorpal and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Exactly, no one loves the freaks. Even the Mutant Master Magneto only really likes those of his kind with human like looks and vast power. To the likes of even those who tolerate freaks you would be at best a pet. Lucky for you though, that is where I come in."

There is a grin on Wiccan's face that is almost predatory as he steps around in front of Keith. "I'll admit, earlier I was rather nasty. And no one is kidding when they call me strange. But I can mend the world in ways, if you repent for all your days, that can really make a change." With a wink he holds up a hand and in it a small hand mirror appears that he hands to Vorpal.

If Vorpal looks in the mirror he will see himself as he was, before his death and change. "Fortunately for you it is not a secret, that I have a talent I have always possessed."

Wiccan takes back the mirror, yanking it from Keith's hands if he has to before pointing to a street corner.

Where he points there is Patrick, looking better than even normal, and in his hands is Keith the way he looked as a human. "And Kitty please don't laugh, but I use it on behalf, of the miserable, the lonely, and depressed."

The sight brings a painful pang in the cat's chest, as he looks at Patrick and himself. Or his other self.

"You mean... you can make me look like I used to?" his voice is suddenly full of hope, eyes widening. "What about.. what about my powers?"

Billy shrugs once more and with a sigh waves his hand in the direction of the happy couple. "If you want to pass the bridge, then you have to pay the toll."

Suddenly the other Keith turns into his feline self, and the auburn haired youth holding him recoils. With a look of revulsion on his face he pushes him away and takes off down the street.

The image of the two fades as if they were never there as Wiccan once steps in front of Keith to block his view. "Your powers have only caused you pain. They bring chaos and strife and mad murderous clowns." That said someone taps Keith on the shoulder.

Behind him is the Joker holding out a flower to him with the wild rictus grin that is always on the villains face. "Were drawn to our own, don't cha know boy?" The Clown Prince of Crime says in a voice that is something between the shrieking of a hyena and the voice of Luke Skywalker at his whiniest.

Wiccan leans on Keith suddenly, an arm thrown around his shoulders like he was a close buddy. While they were on the street a second ago speaking to the Joker now they are at a bar, a slightly dark and seedy one.

Joker appears to be tending bar, handing out increasingly bizarre looking drinks while Harley Quinn acts as waitress. Over in a booth is Patrick drinking a bottle of water and looking depressed. Near the back there is Booster Gold leaning on the juke box dressed in his full costume, but with a leather jacket on and a beautiful woman in each arm. Sitting at a table in the middle of the room is Axiom, but instead of his costume he is in dirty rags and clothes like a homeless person but still wearing his domino mask.

"Look at them all, it's pathetic."

The cat looks at each one of them. Well, perhaps not so much at Joker and Harley as he does to Booster, Eddie and Patrick.

"No.... they're not pathetic.... I am. I never fit in."

Vorpal walks up to the bar to look at everything. To cross the bridge, you must pay the toll. Pay the toll. Pay the piper. "What... what would I have to do?"

"Oh yes they are."

The voice floats across the room from where Wiccan was.

The Joker leans over the bar and is suddenly Wiccan instead. "They are poor unfortunate souls. In pain. In need."

Suddenly music starts to play from the jukebox and Wiccan points out to Booster as he says with care. "That one wanted to be a winner."

There is a puff of smoke and suddenly Booster is alone in his hands a very thick history book looking lonely and depressed.

"And this one, why he only asked for dinner." Wiccan is sitting at the table with the homeless waif Axiom before there is a puff of smoke.

Thor and Sif appear standing behind Axiom who is now in full costume complete with armor covering one arm and a staff in his hands.

"Did I help them? well you should take a guess."

Suddenly Wiccan is sitting across from Patrick with elbows on the table of his booth and chin resting in his hands. "These poor unfortunate souls. So sad, So True. They come flocking to me crying, Will you help me can you please?"

Wiccan gestures at the room and suddenly Booster has the girls again and Axiom is being given a warm embrace by Sif and Thor while Joker and Harley are necking at the bar. "I helped all of them, so why not you?"

Of course he has not answered the question given to him, not yet at least. Just what the toll is, what Keith would have to do to get his dreams still hangs unsaid in the air.

"Booster never mentioned you doing anything for him! He told me that he came from the future because he knew the history of superheroes...." the cat narrows his eyes. Something smelled fishy. He looks at Patrick, wishing he could reach out to him... speak to him. But something was bothering him. He was a creature of chaos, yes. But he also had one hell of a willpower.

"What did THEY give up? What was the toll they paid?"

"And who says I won't be there?" Wiccan asks of the cat suddenly leaning next to him. "Time and space mean nothing when you have power to put your so called Gods to shame you know." He points out to Vorpal before taking a drink of something red and thick in a martini glass.

"It does not matter what they paid, dreams made real and wishes where granted all the same. You can have it all yourself, but before you ask to see the price tag you might as well know the truth." The room starts to darken, and in the shadows there something moves, unseen and unheard the movement is sensed all the same. "You see, you and me, we are not really here."

The lights go out completely and there is a chill wind for a second and suddenly Vorpal is standing in a hospital room standing over a bed. In the bed is someone wrapped in bandages hooked to machines of all kinds making beeps, sweeps, and soft whirring noises.

Dressed like a Doctor Wiccan leans over the bed and looks at the poor wrapped person. "This one lays here all alone. No friends to call his own. Teetering on the edge of life and death."

Suddenly wall of the room disappears and on the other side of it is where Keith died and was reborn as Vorpal. Lying on an alter is who he was before gasping for breath. "And you can remove him from this place, all you have to do is change your fate."

Keith recoils visibly from the memory. The blood, flowing from his throat... into his throat, choking him. Life ebbing out of him. He takes several steps back from the scene, and whirls towards the hospital bed.

"WHO is this?" he hisses, looking at the bandaged figure. "Who is it, damn you, were---"

With the muddled speed of dreams, his brain makes the connection. Fire. It burnt. But it wasn't fire, it was the sun. The rays of the sun, burning him to a cinder. To a crisp. His whole body crying out...

"This is me...."

Billy Kaplan's eyes glow red as Keith spins on him, suddenly dressed as he was when he first appeared. As Keith starts to understand he gives a cold evil smile, rather like one of the Joker's minus the mirth.

"And this is me." His voice is different this time, closer to how it was at first but filled with...something else.

"My child, creature of chaos cast into the darkness. I heard you cry out, I felt you fall, and I have come for you." The room fades into something different. A throne room, done in a style much like that of Asgard but instead of golds earth tones and bright colors it is all in shades of black.

Billy sits on an ebony throne and standing to one side of him is a demonic creature, like something created by H.R. Geiger but less phallic. "My armies march, and I will take back what was once mine. Renounce the prior claim on you and I can give you everything you have wanted, and more. Or you can die in that hospital bed alone and unloved."

Billy Kaplan's eyes glow red as Keith spins on him, suddenly dressed as he was when he first appeared. As Keith starts to understand he gives a cold evil smile, rather like one of the Joker's minus the mirth.

"And this is me." His voice is different this time, closer to how it was at first but filled with...something else.

"My child, creature of chaos cast into the darkness. I heard you cry out, I felt you fall, and I have come for you." The room fades into something different. A throne room, done in a style much like that of Asgard but instead of golds earth tones and bright colors it is all in shades of black.

Billy sits on an ebony throne and standing to one side of him is a demonic creature, like something created by H.R. Geiger but less phallic. "My armies march, and I will take back what was once mine. Renounce the prior claim on you and I can give you everything you have wanted, and more. Or you can die in that hospital bed alone and unloved."

Billy Kaplan's eyes glow red as Keith spins on him, suddenly dressed as he was when he first appeared. As Keith starts to understand he gives a cold evil smile, rather like one of the Joker's minus the mirth.

"And this is me." His voice is different this time, closer to how it was at first but filled with...something else.

"My child, creature of chaos cast into the darkness. I heard you cry out, I felt you fall, and I have come for you." The room fades into something different. A throne room, done in a style much like that of Asgard but instead of golds earth tones and bright colors it is all in shades of black.

Billy sits on an ebony throne and standing to one side of him is a demonic creature, like something created by H.R. Geiger but less phallic. "My armies march, and I will take back what was once mine. Renounce the prior claim on you and I can give you everything you have wanted, and more. Or you can die in that hospital bed alone and unloved."

My armies March.

Keith... Vorpal looks at where his body was, bound to that hospital bed... dying.

Then he looks at the throne, his glance hollow and sad.

"Show me Patrick again."

Patrick steps forth from behind the throne. He is not dressed in the Iron Spider Armor, or even in normal clothes, but in a pair of tight black shorts with that slightly cocky smirk he has when out in public on his face.

"Attractive, strong, a fit consort for a king. Or for a general of my armies. You have good taste child." There is a wave of the hand and a scroll appears in front of Keith, next to it a pen made of bone. "Sign your name, the one you go by in your heart, and everything you want in this life will be yours."

Almost in a daze, the cat reaches for the pen and takes the parchment. He brings the pen close to the parchment and---

" Do you wish to end?"

No-one had spoken aloud, but Keith heard it anyways. Was it a trick of the light, or were two eyes and a smile in front of him? They were gone before he could be sure whether he had imagined it, or they were really there.

But the eyes had looked at him in a way that he could not erase from his mind. In those feline, almond-shaped eyes he had seen faces. The faces of people-- some covered in soot, others covered in scars, blood, broken glass.

The people he had saved in his short career. Those people were alive because he existed. There had been no Batman that day the Joker rode through Gotham.

Do you wish to end? End being what you are? What you've always wanted to be?

He looks up at Patrick again, the most beautiful man he has ever seen. The most beautiful soul.

Who was a hero. Who told him he could not help being a hero.

Was Patrick really the kind of man who would love him because he was no longer a hero--- merely so that he could not be a freak?

The man he loved held duty at such a high degree, it was inconcievable to Keith that he could ever even respect him for abandoning his own. Much less love him.

The cat looks at Billy. Chaos brewed inside the cat--- that ragged, bloody cry of the man raising his chains to cut them, or die at least with them around his slaver's neck. The fire that burned at the furnace of every revolution, of every fireside meeting, that stoked the spirit of those who would never stomach others ruling over them. That essence was the essence of the chaos he was a part of, and suddenly he had a terrible inkling, a horrible suspicion that if someone wanted that essence extinguished, it wasn't for any good reason.

With an ache in his chest and a last, longing look at Patrick, the cat drove the pen through the parchment with a defiant thrust of his wrist.

"I am... what I am." He lets go of the pen, "And if I cease to be it, I'll be nothing but a lie."

He takes a step back. "So let me die." his voice leaves a rasp as it leaves his throat.

As Keith hears that voice Wiccan makes a preoccupied and slightly annoyed face. Something is wrong, he can feel it but can't say what.

As Keith thinks of Patrick, and of the people he has saved, something else happens. There is a glow, not too bright but shining in the darkness that spreads around him. There is love there, and faith. Both are far subtler and more dangerous than anyone gives them credit for being.

There is almost a look of pain on Wiccan's face as the pen is stabbed into the parchment. "Very well. If I cannot bargain for your power. " Wiccan stands, one hand running along Patrick's shoulder before grabbing his neck and snapping it. "Then I shall take it from your corpse."

The demon creature that was at his other side leaps from the dais the throne is on and lands before Vorpal.

Billy growls out at Vorpal, "Kill him my children, but do it slowly."

From out of the shadows more of the demon like creatures emerge. Unfolding from hiding places in the walls, climbing across the ceiling, it is as if the whole throne room had been made of them. A hissing sound emerges from the demons when as one they all fling themselves at Vorpal and...

Claws come out, and the Cheshire cat doesn't cower from the beasts that come to tear at him. His eyes streaming with tears and face twisted in rage as he sees Patrick's neck snapped, he lets out a lion-like roar and gives a baleful glare at Billy

"My powers will never belong to you. They are the Cheshire Cat's, and he is greater than you ever will be!"

With the certainty of someone who will die and who knows it, he runs headfirst towards the demons carrying his heartbreak like a banner.

-- TO BE CONTINUED --