The Concert
The Concert started as one of many concerts. The first one I went to. Beneath the tyranny of The Devil who did evil for the lolz, these concerts were chicken soup for the soul. No one knew how they began or when—historical records have shitty lifespans around Him and his drones—but a gathering against The God of Evil turned into a music festival. Or a music festival turned into a gathering against Him. All I know is the first concert began after The Strike. After hope died alongside the bomb against that impenetrable hide.
Some people committed suicide after The Strike. Those who didn't wish they had. A handful of people played music about freedom, made fun of what we went through and even managed a subtle, stinging retort against Him. This too was a kind of suicide, but it was the suicide of moths, drawn ever closer to the flame.
No one was immune to the dance of a flame in the darkest parts of hell. My neighbors and friends went. I went. People from all over the surrounding area. From three nearby cities and a dozen or so small towns gathered in this one neck of the woods, concealed from most eyes by the forest. Concealed from…from you-know-who…by daylight. Anyway, He hadn't attacked one of these gatherings in over six months, not even with droids. We had grown bold. I had grown bold.
Too bold.
Defiantly, we shirked our infernally-appointed duties to gather in the clearing. A stage had been erected this time. "Must have taken days to put together," said Becky. "Normally these things aren't so planned."
Then the music started and we could hear no more talk. We were swept away so easily. The bands. "Rise Against," "Imagine Angels," "Reyna Rebel," and some new ones like "The Katanas." And the music they played. Every song became our world. We drank them in and forgot everything else. Like drugs. We had become oblivious. Even the lookouts must have paid more attention to the Katanas' song "Warrior."
"—the Samurai they call Ja—" the lead singer choked off the last word as a blotch of darkness swept over us, turning day to night.
No robots crawled toward us. No demons descended from the dark heavens. The inky blackness from above resolved itself into a far more terrifying shape. Humanoid, but far too large to ever be human. A fanged smile that graced a million ads. Fiery brows and bulging eyes pinned us as He stood, or floated, on the stage. The God of Evil himself.
Aku.
If you've only seen the robots or minions, if you've only watched His face through a tiny phone or tablet screen, you know nothing. Terror seized us fast, murdering all thought. Robots can be hidden from, fled or destroyed. There are rumors of minions failed and fallen to the most legendary warriors. But The Devil Himself? A screen captures nothing of His true size; the aura of Evil which surrounds Him.
Darkness, deeper and more inescapable than the shadow of a looming predator on the blackest, moonless night engulfed us all. My breath froze. My heart froze. My legs froze. Standing there was beyond terrifying. Fear circled around and became numb and circled around again to become a new kind of leaden dread. Took everything I had to remember how to breathe.
A talon like death itself snatched the lead singer before anyone could move. She writhed from the agonizing touch. My skin crawled, as though the sight of Him grasping another caused a ghostly talon to ensnare me as well. The high, swift, flighty fear that beat in my chest grew slower and leaden. Shouldn't have come. Should've stayed at work, soul-numbing as that was. The videos we were forced to watch on the news haunted my mind—the mocking laughter, razor words cutting every listener down until we knew only futility. How could such fragile instruments stand against a God? How could any musician speak against Him? Players were forced to beg for the mercy of death and if they wept and trembled and voided their bowls enough, He might grant it. Those who did not degrade themselves to The God of Evil's satisfaction were tortured until they were broken. I remembered the last parade—people with wires threaded through limbs; bodies hanging as broken as their instruments. Faces gaunt and lifeless. People said He could break souls.
I believed them.
The corners of his maw stretched grotesquely until every tooth was bared. Within those teeth was the truth of every horrific word. Every whispered rumor. We would all get another lesson on why He was God and we were but mortals. There was no escape. No hope. I clasped the knife brought for self-defense against a wild crowd but could not bring it to my throat. They said He was the God of Evil but they also said He was the God of Death. The God of all gods who slew all other gods. Our souls went to Him. Not even death was an escape. My nerveless fingers trembled. The knife fell.
Before any of us could seize wit enough to sob or scream or flee; as The God of Evil savored our fear like the scent of cooking meat; another stepped forward. A brown-cloaked figure, hooded, like any of us. Utterly unrecognizable. The moment the fool stepped forward, separating from the crowd, they might well have worn neon lights and driven a dagger through their belly. The crowd cringed away. Those nearest scrambling back. Even the doomed singer, gripped fast in His claws, winced for something beyond her own pain.
"No."
He spoke softly, a little above a whisper. Much to our ears' stupefied disbelief, the lone man did not speak merely in defiance, but in command. In the silence of His appearance and this man's insanity, that calm word carried to the very furthest reaches of the crowd, hidden in the forest like frightened rabbits. Not a man, woman or child dared draw breath. For if we all heard that blasphemous word of defiance, the Demon Himself surely did.
We could not look away. As the automated factory and all its dismembered flesh had once entranced me on my first work-day, so too did this. Mustering all my courage, I tried forcing my eyes to His face, though my imagination pictured the perverse smile growing with sadistic desire to break a particularly bold soul. Oh how The Devil adored those rare few who could master their fear of Him, for it made the taste of their weakness, their despair and their horror all the better once He broke it of them.
The corners of that fanged maw did move, but inward. The look on The Demon God's face was so memorable because I had never seen such a reaction before. Not on The God. His characteristic smile died. No chilling laugh erupted from that black hole of a mouth. No sneer twisted that demonic face further. No great, dark claw dove from the heavens to seize this…beyond impudent mortal and teach him what a God was. The slightest shrinking of His maw. The wide eyes. Those were features of surprise, something a God couldn't be. When He spoke, His tone was not powerful or commanding. There was the slightest thread of…what? Uncertainty. However blasphemous that was to think.
"You…"
The way He said it. Drawn out and low, the outrage sapped from His voice. Hesitation was not what anyone would think a God could exhibit. Uncertainty begets fear. And fear ultimately spawns from the possibility of death.
But Gods are immortal.
The Devil's grip slackened; the singer forgotten. Not by the speaker. In the face of Aku's uncertainty, he leapt. In the silence of a crowd struck dumb, we heard the slide of metal against wood. A flash of light on steel. The faintest whish as the warrior brought his sword down upon the arm imprisoning the singer.
My heart stopped again. Every class was shown the videos. The explosion of the bomb. It's sheer destruction. And the unmarred black skin beneath. In that moment, the defiant man sealed his death. The sword would bounce of impenetrable, invulnerable hide. Another supposed 'legendary magical blade' would shatter. The Demon would seize this commanding warrior and relish breaking him into a blubbering mess begging for death. The fate of a thousand other great warriors wielding a thousand other legendary, magical and technological weapons. Perhaps I would see what was left. At work.
"AARRRGGGHHH!"
Oh. Em. A.
We rocked back like one being, ten thousand people with fallen jaws and gaping mouths and wide eyes fixated on the black liquid dribbling from the wound. The wound split wider and wider across Aku's wrist. The warrior had already landed gracefully and turned back toward The Demon. With an odd, fleshy, squelching noise, flesh parted completely. Aku's arm fell back, clawless. The hand still wrapped around the lead singer of The Katanas went as limp as melting wax, sharp points softening to a formless mass. The warrior, leaping once more, caught the singer before she hit the hard, wooden stage. The pair landed. The severed hand of Aku splattered on the stage in a puddle of ink.
Above it all screeched a tone our own ears could hardly believe. The strange sound resonated, loud enough to drown out the loudest concert music had the musicians the nerve to play. I tore my eyes away from the impossible sight of what was once the Demon's flesh to the even more impossible sight to match the sound we heard.
It was a scream.
Aku's mouth gaped. His back arched. The sound rang out, familiar and utterly inhuman. Voiced from a being without lungs or vocal chords like ours, if they existed at all. The sound pierced through my earplugs as though they weren't there. A scream felt more than heard.
A God's scream of pain.
Our eyes fell to the Demon's raised limb. The remaining flesh burned and scorched. A stump where a hand once was, like so many victims. The invulnerable, impenetrable, immortal Aku screamed for the first time in agony. The foreign sound sparked something in my soul. The sight of his face twisted in pain kindled a flame that had never burned before. Of all the music I'd ever heard, nothing sang so sweetly in my ears. Like gasoline to a spark, so did that scream make hope burn bright.
Blackness dripped off the warrior's blade.
Like blood.
I followed the drops of blackness as they fell. I could almost taste them on my tongue. Surely, a sweet of taste as it was scent. A demon's blood.
My eyes were taken by mirages. My ears must be liars. This is a dream. The most blissful, torturous dream. Dazed, I reached out and snagged a bit of flesh between two nails. Pain. But this was impossible. The sword was impossible. The warrior was impossible.
Yet, the Katana's singer was rising from a smaller puddle of Aku's blood. Alive. Unharmed. We would have rubbed our eyes if we'd dared wrenched them away from the battle. The severed stump continued bleeding, despite the impossibility. Then, it bubbled. The whole limb warped and out burst talons. Five more. The devil was whole once more. Yet the fires in our souls didn't die. We had seen the severed limb. Smelled the blood. Heard the scream. Aku struck at the warrior again and we hung, ten thousand impossible hopes and resurrected dreams, on the warrior.
Whoosh. Slash.
"Aaaarrrrhhh!"
That scream powered by fiendish throat surely couldn't be a dream. Not two screams ripped from the gullet of Aku. Oh, it was incandescent. Phoenixes burst from the fire on hearing such a sound. I swayed, drunk on the voice. My heart slammed into my sternum, my body thrumming with an energy it never had. I needed that sound; had lived my whole life without knowing how much I needed to hear such a sweet scream. It was like dying of thirst in a desert and falling into the sweetest spring water. Like being chained in the darkness behind bars until one day a door opens. Like drowning only to throw your head above the surface of the water and take a life-giving breath.
I took that breath. We all took that breath like sharks inhaling the scent of blood. If this emotion, this energy was too much to live with, I would die with a smile on my face. I don't remember raising my phone, fingers automatically hitting the right buttons for a live recording, but record I did. This needed to be shared. So I recorded and watched, unable to stop either.
Aku's humanoid body warped into the form of a scorpion, tail striking. Stinger met sword and the severed tail flopped uselessly before turning to a puddle of darkness. Again, the demon screamed and this time even the most timid souls crept out of the forest. Again, a shifting of form. A spider this time but the warrior seemed to move in six directions at once. Leg after leg fell until Aku stumbled away, as crippled as any of the bodies on the conveyer line.
For a moment. New limbs replaced stumps as though he had never been struck. Only his temper showed the damage. "I will kill you Samurai!" With massive, draconic wings the demon swooped from the sky.
Aku was a devil of his word. He had never failed. Yet with another mighty leap, the warrior severed part of a passing wing. The great dragon crashed into the ground in a tangle of feathers and scales and bleeding limbs. Our hopes soared higher than anything could fly. With every blow Aku became more and more mortal in our eyes. Able to die.
The warrior thrust his sword into that black heart and for a moment Aku was gone. The sword turned black. Another swing and the demon was back. Or, a limp, frail creature barely able to raise a shaking claw in its own defense had taken his place. How could this be the god of evil whose shadow I lived under all my life? How could this warrior have reduced Aku to this? The devil looked ready to die, even from a mortal wound. Those closest surely had the same thoughts, they approached like wolves on disemboweled prey.
"No. Stop," the warrior commanded.
Too late. With desperate strength, Aku seized the closest person. Even quicker, the warrior freed the young man with one swing of his sword but the distraction was enough. Two robotic servants no one (save perhaps the warrior) noticed swooped down. They snatched their fallen master from the warrior's lethal blow. Aku whimpered weakly as the last stab ripped through his feet. He was flown away like a piece of torn laundry by his minions.
He was gone. We were alive. I could breathe again.
Holy shit. Holy Shit. Oh my A—Oh My G—he did it. He did it. I was trembling all over, awash with adrenaline and alive with hope. I collapsed to my knees from the dizziness of it all, my phone landing in the grass as I sobbed. My friends and neighbors and fellow strangers were as uncomprehending as I. Everyone trembled and shook. Some fell to their knees, others rose from theirs. We were like people who had slept all our lives and just now woke. And truly, this was an awakening.
For a moment, we feared another trick. No one spoke, as though a word would destroy this fantasy, this heaven. We gaped at the stage where the warrior was helping the young man he'd rescued. The Katanas' singer was leading her group back onto the stage. Alive. They were all alive. We were all alive. Aku had fled. Surely, this was not a trick. Aku wouldn't have fled, even for a trick. The little dot that he and his drones made in the sky vanished. Nothing interrupted this strange peace where one of our own had committed the most blasphemous deed possible.
Was it even illegal to murder Aku? A god wouldn't write such laws.
The whispers began, all hissing the same words: "he did it." My mouth joined in. I picked up my phone and rose to my feet. Hope could not be kept silent. The crowd whispered around me. Ten thousand voices like the hiss of a volcano. Some of those whispers became a name. The name they called this warrior.
"Jack."
Warriors had, once in a blood moon, challenged Aku. The result was inevitable. Aku had always made a mockery of their broken bodies and corpses and so-called heroic attempts to defeat him. When I got word of Samurai Jack seeking the demon's death, I dismissed him as yet another of the walking dead. Though he, unlike almost every other heard of, was convinced of success. Too insane to realize he was suicidal.
The first video of him was impressive. Slightly blurry from distance, it still captured a single armored figure fighting against a whole freaking horde of beetle drones. Sure he'd laid traps. But against a horde? Whole cities have been ground into sand and dust by those blade-tipped legs. The long, oily battle and bounty subtly hinted at what no one dared believe: that he might have a chance. Everyone thought it was only a matter of time before Aku gave another parade. And another body put front and center.
In one still-unbelievable moment, the warrior shattered wisdom of the ages. We gaped at he who raised a weapon against Aku. Who had fought Aku.
And beaten him.
"Jack. Jack. Jack."
More and more took up the chant. It rose from a whisper under our breaths to a bellowing roar as Aku failed to stop us. My throat was so sore I was coughing as much as cheering, but I couldn't stop. The puddles of black blood. The warrior with his sword still dripping ink. Every single one of us alive. And no sign of the demon. Another wave of hope swept us all up. I could still hardly believe my eyes. Still had to re-check the stage and the man who had done the impossible. Yet it had happened. Aku had been beaten.
"Jack! Jack! Jack!"
I saved that precious, precious video and as several of you know began sending it to everyone I knew before uploading it to the Tube. Within a minute, thousands of other people were watching my video. Millions more watching the videos of everyone else.
Nothing would be the same again.
Because of The Concert.