The Rampage
Chapter 2: Fear
A thirty-five year old man woke up. He looked around his small cottage. There was his broomstick, his makeshift kitchen, a wooden chair, and many other objects. He was about thirty miles away from London.
Julius coughed and rose out of bed. He dressed quickly and then prepared breakfast: eggs. He simply took his wand, pointed it at an egg in a pan he had made, and the egg scrambled. It was this kind of ingenuity that he prided himself on.
Julius checked his watch. It was a little past seven. He had a meeting at nine with some very important people.
He rubbed his hand through his hair. Some of it fell to the ground in a graceful motion. Julius watched it with intrigue. Such a graceful thing...graceful things just appeared to be graceful on the outside. Just like him.
Julius left his cabin on his broomstick, heading for London. It would take him about an hour to reach there. He would have to work on the pathetic piece of wood.
An hour later, he reached London, and set down in Diagon Alley. Nobody stared at him as he walked out of the broomstick parking area. He could see Gringott's and the various other stores as he made his way to the Leaky Cauldron, a new pub. There were some new stores going up: a pet store, a bookstore, and the wand shop was moving into a new building. Julius was an hour early for his meeting, but he had a feeling this pub might be pretty good. Or at least better than the last thing guarding Diagon Alley, a broomstick repair shop.
An hour later, a man walked into the Leaky Cauldron and took a seat across from Julius. "Hello, Mister Kaiser," the man said.
"Yes, hello Alex," Julius greeted. "Everything is in order for the big day?"
"Yes, of course. I've got your background ready and all...let's see now...you represent a charity that helps orphaned children get back on their feet. Clever disguise, Julius," Alex responded. Alex was an accountant at the Ministry, and he could arrange the funds Julius needed. It was close to fifty thousand galleons, but the Ministry had almost unlimited funding. He would have no problem getting what he needed.
"When do I get my fifty thousand? Will I receive more if needed?" Julius asked. Julius had been preparing for years for this day, gathering research and interviewing people that had experienced events similar to what Julius had experienced.
"Yes, I have gotten everything planned for any extra funding. You're very committed to this, my friend," Alex responded.
"When will I be able to pick it up?" Julius asked. Alex sighed.
"Julius, you must give me time. I've got to pass it through the Ministry's accounting offices. There's paperwork–"
"Look, I didn't come here to play games. I need the money now! Besides, I've been waiting too long for this moment. Don't make me kill you!" Julius said to Alex in a demanding tone. Alex began to breathe hard, eyes wide open and scared. He had never seen Julius so demanding before.
"Look," Alex said, "I'm doing the best I can. Just give me time!" Julius pulled out his wand and stuck it in Alex's face.
"I've already waited twenty years for this. I do not have time for time. I will kill you if you don't get the money by Friday. That gives you three days. If you don't do it, you're dead; and I get another person I know to do this. And if he fails, I'll go to the Ministry and steal it myself. Got that?" Julius asked to Alex. Alex nodded.
"I'll kill you in a way you've never imagined. I have thirty curses I've made in the last twenty years. I'll use them all on you if I have to, starting with a foot-shrinking curse and ending with a curse that will pop every vein in your body. Very painful ways to die, don't you agree?" Julius said with a smile.
"You're disgusting me," Alex replied. Julius replaced his wand back at his side.
"I can kill you in many other ways as well. Now, we'll leave it at this. I'll see you here on Friday, same time."
* * *
That Friday, Julius walked into the Leaky Cauldron thirty minutes early and took a seat. He was extremely tired, so he ordered some hot tea.
Alex rushed in the door thirty minutes. He carried with him a package, and he certainly looked to be the morning person.
"Got it right here, Julie," he said. Julius sighed.
"Why did you just call me that?" Julius asked.
"Sorry, Sir, I was just out of breath from all my working; and it's much easier to say," Alex explained. Julius nodded and picked up the package, looking at it.
"Well, I presume fifty thousand galleons are in here," he said as he shook the package.
"A hundred," Alex said quickly. Julius stopped shaking the package and stared at Alex dead in the eyes.
"A hundred?" Julius asked with a smile.
"A hundred thousand galleons, Sir. I was able to get it all easily done, with the new Charity Act and all," Alex responded.
"Well, that's the good, old-fashioned, Malfoy ingenuity, eh?" Julius asked. Alex nodded.
"What do I get in return?" Alex asked. Julius smiled.
"Follow me, chap," he said as he led Alex out the door and into Diagon Alley.
"We're going to apparate to my home outside London. Then I will explain everything, my plan and everything involved. I'm going to make you part of my inner circle, Alex," Julius said. Alex's eyes lit up.
"Really?" Alex asked.
"Everything will be explained there, Alex. Apparate!" The two apparated, a rather quick journey in which matter and mind combined to insert a person in a completely different spot. It was a sickening rush of light and stomach churning. Thankfully the ride did not last long.
"We're here," Julius said. He was taking a guilty pleasure in his plan. But, was that not what he was supposed to feel? There was a slight breeze in the air.
"Well, I take it we'll just go in?" Alex asked. Alex looked scared, while also excited at the same time. But there was no telling what was going on inside a Malfoy. Julius had done some research on this, and he knew that the family could not really be trusted.
"Yes, of course," Julius said, smiling. He led Alex into the house and then shut the door. "Now, Alex, I must thank you for the package. Please, sit down, have a seat." Alex took a seat in the one roomed cabin. He was smiling, and Julius glared at him for a second before taking a seat across the cabin.
"Julius, you don't know what this means. It's so great to be working with you, after all you've got everything ready for your miss–"
"Shut up, fool. I have no need for you. Do you really think I would want a lying, cheating, stealing, pathetic Malfoy in my inner circle? For crying out loud, I would not trust a Malfoy even if it was a not-so-brave one like you. But you've done well, and I thank you," Julius said as Alex began to dart for the door. Suddenly, Alex almost froze in place as Julius walked toward him.
"Nice little charm I invented in case you tried to escape. Of course, I'm oblivious to it, as is the army I will have. It's not one of my thirty death curses, but it can do. Don't you think?" Alex was silent. He could not move his mouth. "God you're pathetic." Julius picked up Alex and sat him down in a chair. The curse was off, but Alex did not move.
"You dirty-crossing, lying, cheating, pathetic–" Alex began, only to be cut off.
"Me? Pathetic? Gosh, you must be mistaken. I am Julius! I can kill you in a blink of your eye. Don't mess with me, you little imbecile!" Julius slapped Alex as Alex cringed in terror. His face was red from the sting.
"Don't kill me," Alex said, almost crying. "Please don't kill me..." Julius stared silently at Alex. Julius grabbed Alex's neck and began to twist it.
"Look at me. The first rule of this game is to leave no witnesses. And that means you," he said as Alex held on for life. Then Alex suddenly stopped and fell into the chair. His eyes were open with fear, and his face was turning blue. Julius picked the man up and put him outside, where Alex could rot. He could decompose with the rest of nature.
* * *
Two years later, a group of fifty thousand men, mainly underground criminals or people that had been cheated by the Ministry, were gathered somewhere underground in England. Julius Kaiser stood at the front of a stage, dressed in a black cloak with no hood. He was completely bald, having just recently lost his hair. He had no scar.
"Greetings, my friends. I have spent twenty years planning for this day! The day we stop remembering what we could have done and start avenging the deaths of our loved ones. The Ministry has gone too far with their evil ways...people think they are good, but these people are wrong. For we must take our revenge!" The crowd cheered. Julius smiled and glared at the crowd in a look that showed evil and revenge.
"But today we have a year of preparation left until our attack on the Warlock Convention. The convention is scheduled for June 5th. We must begin preparing!"
And thus the work began of the Oppressed, as the group was called. It had been founded years before...when Julius had moved to London. Julius's second-in-command was a man named Arthur Lyte, a former businessman whose business had been accused of being a monopoly by the Ministry. It had been broken up, and his brother ran the majority of it. And his inner circle was amazing...there were military strategists and former high-ranking Ministry employees, to name a few. It was truly a blessing.
But their greatest strength was easily the genius mind of Julius. Julius's spells were amazing, especially the ones he had recently conjured up. And he had figured out a way to teach the lightning spell to his troops without killing them in a backfire.
Julius walked out one day two weeks later to meet the newest and final recruits at boot camp. The recruits were leaping over walls, going through obstacle courses, and putting their bodies through physical torture. The evil man walked down the line of recruits doing pushups, each with a weight on their back. Julius stopped at one young, especially large recruit.
"Get up, boy!" he yelled at the recruit. The recruit somehow made it up. This recruit's face was tense, showing his signs of nervousness.
"I'm sorry, Sir, the weight was just–"
"Too much? Too much? Do you know what I've had too much of? I've had too much of lazy imbeciles like you sitting around! If we're gonna win, you've got to work! Does anybody here understand that?" The recruit cringed. Julius was actually two inches shorter than him, but his presence had a certain elegance and strength.
"Yes, Sir, I understand," said the recruit, holding his bravery. Julius stepped on the recruit's foot.
"Then get back to work! All of you!" The recruit went back to doing his pushups, and Julius moved on.
* * *
The day: June 4th, 1889. The place: Warlock Convention Building, London. The time: 10:00 PM. A group of about twenty people stepped out of the building, laughing and talking. They were the planners of the convention. The convention had two points: to bring wizards together for a week and to establish new rules and guidelines in magic, almost a congress. There were delegates that had been sent to represent their districts' bidding.
A group of fifty men stayed hidden behind the bushes of the walkway. They were dressed in black clothing, and each had a wand and a knife for hand-to-hand combat.
The twenty men continued on, unaware of what was to happen.
Suddenly, one of the fifty men realized some bug was about to bite him and moved to swat it.
One of the twenty men heard this.
"Stop," the man said as the other nineteen men stopped. "There's something in the bushes." The man moved to the bush in which he had heard the noise and peeked his head over it. The man saw a glimpse of silver before yelling in pain as the knife went through his cheek. Blood poured as he fell on the ground.
"Freeze!" another man from the bush yelled as he jumped over. "All of you, get back in the building!" It was Julius. Nineteen men, not including the one with the knife in his face stepped in. Julius did not follow.
Julius stepped up to this man on the ground and kneeled down to admire the pain. Julius smiled before stepping on the man's chest. Then the body. "No witnesses, no evidence," he said.
Back inside, Arthur was ordering all the hostages to line up against the wall.
"What do you want? Money? I can give you money, more money–" one hostage began to say.
"Money? You think I want money? I don't want any money! I just want the Ministry to fall! And tonight, you're all going to die!" Arthur said to the hostage. He kicked the hostage in the shin. "That's for stupidity!"
The hostage shut his mouth, but his face showed a burning mix of revenge and pain. Arthur eyed the man once more before walking away.
The large door opened as Julius walked in. He smiled for everyone and surveyed the hostages. "Good work, Arthur," he said as he took a seat in a chair. "Rip the place apart," Julius said.
The banners were ripped down and burned in a large bonfire behind the building. The leather was torn of chairs and thrown at the hostages, who were magically bonded to the wall, their wands broken. Every hostage had at least one part of their body with blood. One's face was almost torn apart.
The stage was another thing. The men took the stage and began to destroy it. The podium was thrown to the floor, the wood broken. Arthur and Julius smiled.
After the destruction was complete, all the army members cheered. "Hush!" Julius said. "We have a new group to deal with." He walked over the hostages. "Who shall I kill first?" he asked to the hostages, not expecting an answer. He walked down the line, sometimes slapping a hostage or grabbing their arms and shaking them. Finally, he stopped at a man with blood pouring down his neck.
"Do you want me to take you out of this pain?" he asked to the man. The man did not respond. "Tell me!" Still the man did not respond. Julius stuck his wand in the man's gut. "Tell me!"
There was no response. Julius undid the spell on the hostage, pulling the hostage out by the neck and throwing him on the floor. The hostage wiped blood off his face before getting up. Julius kicked the hostage in the stomach, sending the hostage back. Then the hostage ran at Julius. Julius bent his knees and picked the hostage up, throwing him back. The hostage hit the wall and then the floor. Julius turned around, wiping his brow. He picked the hostage up by the shoulder and threw him into the wall.
"Don't mess with me," he said as he fumbled for his wand. Then he backed up and lightning poured out, turning the man to ash and the wall behind him to black. "That goes for all of you! Kill them!"
One by one, every person was murdered on the spot. Some were physically abused to death, others were killed by knives, some killed by magic. By the end, fifteen bodies were still recognizable, and the floor was drenched with blood, as was the air.
"We're gonna leave the bodies here...everything will stay. I want to give those coming tomorrow the shock of their life," Julius said. He walked around the room, surveying the destruction they had caused. He smiled. "Well done, men. Well done indeed. Now, we have an estimated five thousand coming here tomorrow. That's what the Ministry has published. This building can hold up to twelve thousand people; it's rather large. We have six thousand members of the Oppressed that are going to participate in tomorrow's activities. We'll all be using an invisibility spell. We'll stretch across the outside of the building; and an hour after the convention begins, we attack. If there is a convention. If everybody suddenly leaves, we kill them all. But the Ministry clean-up crew will be here in about thirty minutes, so...they may have a convention after all. Or they may move it...I don't know. Either way, let's get ready."
The Ministry clean-up crew arrived fifteen minutes early. They were five men, each with cleaning supplies. Julius watched patiently as the bodies were carried out and more men came. However, Julius dared not to look inside. Three hours later, the clean-up crew left; and Julius and Arthur walked into the building.
"My God," Arthur said, "they've cleaned the place up!" The stage was as good as new, the blood on the floors gone. The podium was perfectly in place. The decorations were up. Julius smiled.
"The Ministry's going to have tighter security tomorrow. We'll have a tougher time, even if the Ministry is rather stupid not to cancel the convention," Julius said.
"Do you think it's political?" asked Arthur.
"It's a very political decision, indeed. The Minister has more guts than I thought he did. But he'll be showing up tomorrow. We won't kill him. He'll be traumatized. Mentally traumatized."
* * *
Time: 10:00 AM. Julius and his men were spread out under the cover of invisibility around the convention building, waiting for Julius's cue to begin. The convention started in thirty minutes. Everyone was still, silent, and unseen, slightly paranoid. But they could only imagine what the Ministry would think of their unseen attackers.
At 10:50, the six thousand men moved silently toward the door. You could see the grass almost lowering and then moving up again. The army waited for ten minutes.
"Go!" Julius yelled to his team, as other team leaders did the same. The invisibility spells immediately wore off as the army charged into the building. The security team began to try and ward off the efforts of the army, but they were useless as the army stabbed them and shot various spells and curses at them. The security team was no more.
The opening festivities had been interrupted right before the Minister had finished a twenty minute speech. "Minister, step this way," the Minister's personal bodyguards said to the Minister as the went to a secret exit the Oppressed did not know about. Julius saw this early and tailed them.
"Stop right there, Mister Quincy! Stop! For I am Julius, leader of the Oppressed!" Julius screamed, running through the confusion of the fight. The Oppressed was winning easily in hand-to-hand combat, but in a fight of magic they were not faring as well. About fifty members were dead, but the total was definitely less than the people attending the convention.
The Minister ran on, guided by his bodyguards, part of the Sirs. Julius knew the Sirs were easily a match for his army in close combat or magic, and he wasn't going to take the risk yet. He wasn't ready. And he couldn't apparate in the building; there were curses all around that would stop him.
Julius ran faster, trying to reach the Minister and his bodyguards. He pulled fighting men apart, trying to reach them.
And the Minister made it out. Julius jumped on the ground, cursing. He had missed his opportunity.
A civilian came running at him. Julius took at his knife and stabbed the civilian in the stomach. The civilian gasped. His lungs had been punctured. Julius took the knife out, and the civilian fell. Julius knelt down and wiped the blade on the civilian's shirt. The civilian was almost dead. His eyes were wide open with fear, terror, shock, horror. Julius cut the civilian's jugular vein, wiped the blade once more, and moved on. He passed Arthur, who was dodging the punches of a civilian, past the same fat soldier he had ridiculed a year before, who was kneeing a small man in the head.
It was a bloody thing indeed. Julius could see some of the Oppressed down and dead, as well as many of the civilians that had come to the convention. And he felt an urge to do something. He walked up to a civilian and threw him against a wall. "Hold still," Julius said, aiming his wand at the civilian's neck.
"No!" the man cried. "God, no! Don't kill me! Help! Don't kill–" Julius fired fire out of his wand, as the man burned to death, turning to ash that was now falling on the ground. Julius smiled.
When everything was all said and done, the Oppressed had seriously done it. They had easily beaten the Ministry. The number of deaths for the Oppressed was only sixty compared to the four thousand civilians and Ministry workers dead. Of course, the Oppressed had the great advantage of surprise. The Ministry had been doomed from the beginning.
And yet, Julius did not feel guilty. He wanted more power, more blood, more honor, more of everything. His quest was not the quest for good it had been. Now it had mutated into this bizarre thing, this bizarre fight of blood, not ideals. The Oppressed just wanted more. They no longer cared about anything. They were mindless slaves to Julius. Julius did none of the things he believed he would when he was sixteen.
That night, Julius went to the headquarters of the Oppressed. It was a full moon outside, and it lit up the evening. Fitting, Julius thought as he opened the door to his room. He turned on the oil lantern and pulled out a long knife, admiring it.
"I need a symbol. Something to evoke fear when people see me so that know I am not just another person on the street," he said to himself. He took the knife and cut a long line in his forehead, then did a healing spell so that it would only leave a scar.
"I am Fear," he said. And he was right. For that night, the Ministry began to prepare for war; and Julius's name was known throughout the countryside. Fear had taken a living embodiment.
Author's Note: Well, that's Chapter 2! I personally think it's much better than Chapter 1; but I'm not saying Chapter 1 is bad, just slightly too cinematic. I'm quick cuts, low angles, medium shots...and you don't know the heck I'm thinking! You're just seeing this! And thanks to Flourish especially...she's really cool. And everyone that loved Colin Creevey Versus the Apocalypse, yeah I'm gonna say it again. And everyone who reads my stuff, you guys rule!
And quick side note: anybody out here seen The Insider or Three Kings and love those two movies as much as I do? They're both really great movies. I put Three Kings as my favorite and The Insider as my second favorite. And any film made by the Coen Brothers, like Raising Arizona, Fargo, and The Hudsucker Proxy. Of course there are other great movies...and that's my rant.
And, please review...please? It helps for an author to know what more than three people think of his story. (And I'm referring to the current total of reviews on July 4, 2000.)
