Original story based on characters and material created by Project Aces. The author takes no for-profit ownership of them.
Prologue: High Above The Mucky-Muck
Prestige Tower
87 Rue Magdalene
13th Arrondisement, Farbanti, Erusea
19 July 1998
The business carried on by Farbantians as rush hour began to set in didn't seem that much different from when the apocalypse wasn't looming above their heads. There was only a quiet tension, the acceptance that even though death and destruction was imminent, the only thing to do was take it day by day and hope that maybe they wouldn't be deemed unlucky in the great wheel of fate.
Fifty-odd stories above the commute and just near the top of the haze, someone was trying to get the best seat in the house.
Standing as tall as a professional Osean football player but clad in a business suit that only seemed to make his surly, darker-complexion figure seem even more formidable, the client seemed to take his time perusing every detail of the tower's two-story penthouse. The sunlight seemed to be completely absorbed into the crests of his wavy hair as his silvery eyes darted their gaze from one item of furniture to the other.
He was accompanied by one of the building's sales agents, a purely secretarial figure who might have literally been half his size but posed twice as much confidence - or at least attention to the routine - to compensate.
"And here we come to the best view of the entire penthouse: the great Usean sunset setting across our coastline. On a very clear day you might just be able to catch a glimpse of the cliffs of Torchester just beyond the horizon."
The Erusean real estate agent was clearly making an effort to hide her forced smile and hyperbole showing him around with scripted lines she'd probably memorized dozens of times over. After all nobody of a pedigree less than royalty or Vinewood A-List, let alone of her buyer's heritage got a penthouse condo on the west side of the capitol's ultra-glitzy 13th Arrondisement unless they had plenty of money to throw around.
Were it not for the grandest of outside intervention clearing the list, he wouldn't even have known they were open for buyers.
"You're very lucky, Monsieur Petters." she continued, before trailing off at the end.
"Please, not so loud, I don't want the neighbors to hear," he asserted jokingly, turning to face her with piercing gray eyes. An appearance like his required special skills when it came to shifting identities, and he'd shown some very well-crafted fake identification when he showed up for his appointment. Especially when this was the kind that ultra-luxury properties like this made through connections rather than pamphlets or crudely-crafted World Wide Web sites.
"But of course, of course. Discretion," she replied with a nod, adjusting her glasses. "Still you are either very lucky or very crazy."
"Why's that?"
"Usea is not exactly a buyer's market right now. From here to North Point and across to Sant-Mikael," she explained nonchalantly. "The insurance rates are skyrocketing right now even for the studios."
Of course they are, he thought. Any number of large meteors making impact on the planet in the next year could not just instantly vaporize prime property like this - but also chuck its remnants up into orbit to rain down on the other unfortunates.
The man turned back to the window, safe in the knowledge that this wouldn't be his only property acquisition. "Money's not a problem for me. I'm more worried I'm going to have all these floors to my lonely self."
"Fortunately, non," the guide continued, trying not to understand his sense of humor. "We have actually had one other buyer in the past few months."
"So I'm not the only crazy one," he chuckled. "Who am I going to be sharing the cell block with?"
"No. Messieur...well, he was more upfront about his name..." she took a deep breath as if the name she mentioned was obviously that much more important than he was, "Mssr. François Mondeci is someone like you."
The larger man raised an eyebrow. "Really. An enterpreneur, or just plain crazy?"
"A little bit of both...he's the youngest man on the board with ELE, Erusean oil, but he's got stakes everywhere too. Armaments, precious metals and minerals, diamonds..."
This caused the man to wince a little. "I suppose he's more discreet about where those diamonds came from than where he throws his money."
"Yes, I suppose he was less forthcoming about those specifics," the guide continued with a slight chuckle that appeared more creepy to him than it really was. "But he's definitely not shy about where he wants to live. He bought the penthouse in our tower next door."
"Then I guess I'm going to have a very nosy neighbor," he chuckled.
The real estate agent seemed frazzled by the continuous jabs. "What was it you do again?"
"I told you, I'm an investor." Like the real estate agent, he'd uttered that line so often that even he was starting to believe it. "An enterpren-"
"Ex-military?" she replied, pointing it out like she'd known him for years.
"..." His mouth opened, but he didn't have the words to follow it up. He had no idea how to react. Of all the people to question his background...
"You don't have to be ashamed about it, monsieur, I can tell from your demeanor," she laced her inner victory with the salve of appeasement, "Plenty of soldiers and mercenaries getting rich these days."
And went broke trying to enjoy it like I do, he thought. "Hm. I thought you were going to-"
"A sale is a sale, monsieur. As long as the neighbors don't file a lawsuit, we prefer to keep our client list internal," she reassured him.
"And that's correctly assuming I'm a buyer," he nodded. Unless you still don't smell the money wafting into your nose.
He then turned back out to look down at the people milling and cars roaming, his hands in his suit pockets. Doing what he'd done all his life, it wasn't as surprising that he'd completely overcome his fear of heights as much as it was that bullets weren't coming up at him from down there anymore.
Now he wasn't just looking down at every conceivable walk of life, but he was also high enough up - literally and metaphorically - to not have to worry about them trying to drag him back down.
"So you're interested?" she asked. It would have been a voice laden with enthusiasm if she weren't shuffling between the company's properties to find something that could sell in a neighborhood now as temporary as a remote village in the mountains thanks to the powers of the universe.
He turned to face her, his smile almost as seductive as it was enthusiastic. "I'll come by to sign the paperwork when you have an empty spot in your schedule."
"Thank you, monsieur," she replied, returning his grin with a formal, satisfied smile of her own.
"And I'll be paying cash, unless you need a money order," he continued, with a low-pointed finger for emphasis.
"We'll explain payment plans later on," Her smile brightened a little before a conspicuous beeping noise drew both their attention. "Excusez moi, I have to take this."
"Go ahead," he replied, politely waving her off.
The real estate agent immediately withdrew her cellphone from her purse. The thing was about the length of her forearm but it continued to amaze him how the newer models didn't even require batteries bigger than her purse. She pressed a button that beeped about as loud as the cellphone's ringing through the purse, and immediately ducked out of his line of sight to answer the call.
He took the time to resume taking in all the details of his new view of the landscape. The view went clear across the roofs of the arrondisement's smaller towers, out into the Spring Sea that separated Erusea from the Osean landmass. At the height of summer, it would be a few hours yet before he could experience that "famed Erusean sunset."
But he still looked up at the sky, at the few puffy clouds traversing the horizon and the occasional Aerusea jets flying to and from Farbanti Nouveau Internationale. It was the kind of deceptive peace and tranquility observed only by people who had never taken to the sky except perhaps in the comfort of such a passenger jet.
And he began laughing triumphantly.
For years, as long as he remembered, the sky was the only place to escape the desperation and anarchy on the ground, and a part of the world that didn't want him except when they found him useful for their dubious causes. Three years ago he'd made the choice to expand his horizon. Now he was buying a penthouse condominium in one of the world's foremost capital cities, and indulging in the material excesses that money and a reputation as a monster could buy.
And in all that time, even to those that knew him, "monster" was one of the milder insults he'd received among the cornucopia of insults dealt in who knew how many languages.
He had long forgotten when he decided to stop fighting that moniker, but when he did he decided to embrace it. Then he made the sky his lair, enriching himself off the terror he instilled into his enemies and the reverence he inspired in those to whom he allowed to hold his leash.
The last three years that the "monster" alternatively known as the Demon Lord and Scarface had spent as a monster had quite simply been the best three years of his life.
And until the skies he ruled finally fell upon him, he was all but certain his best years were still in front of him.
To Be Continued...