Prelude 2: Berserker From The Void

Mitchell Pratt

Today was just not my day. I stood in a silent, unmoving crowd of people who, quite recently, were tearing each other apart, running for their lives and screaming at the top of their lungs. Some of them had somehow managed to do all three at once. All of us were looking right above us at the impossible sight that was hanging over our heads. By that, I don't mean the fifteen foot tall psychic murder angel. I had accepted her existence long ago and when she had appeared less than 15 minutes ago, I had been able to accept my death gracefully and all I had to do was suffer a mild psychotic break in return. 'Though I'm not sure if fantasizing about the Simurgh counts as simply a mild psychotic break', I thought worriedly.

Hundreds of cracks, each at least a mile wide, appeared all over the sky, all of them converging at a spot hundreds of feet above the Simurgh, in a manner reminiscent of someone taking a bat to a windshield. The cracks continued to fracture and split, all the while making the most gruesome noise. For nearly a full minute, no one spoke, moved or breathed as we watched the sky fracture above us.

Suddenly, with a loud shattering noise that sounded like the largest piece of glass in the world, the sky split open and the blue heavens above disappeared. What it exposed was almost indescribable due to how unearthly it was. So many colors, patterns and odd shapes that were just not normal appeared to everyone below. Oddly, despite the fact that I was seeing colors and patterns, I still saw the massive breach above us as nothing but a thick, black miasma that spread out from the rip in the sky. It seemed to pulsate as it creeped outward, stretching out until it completely covered the kaleidoscope that it originated from.

"A new...reality set. Closed off from the Nexus. Very few of those. INTERESTING."

It was...creepy, to say the least, but I just couldn't stop looking at it. Every pulse seemed to mean something. It...it was almost as if it were SPEAKING to me.

"A limited multidimensional existence but purely physical? How quaint...WAIT. What is that?...YOU!"

I kept staring at it but the more I looked at it, the more my head began to hurt and soon I had a splitting headache that surpassed what I felt from the Simurgh.

"You're perfect. I finally have a usable meat puppet of my own."

I gritted my teeth and dug my fingernails into my palm until I drew blood but I couldn't stop looking. It...it was talking to me, I knew it! I couldn't look away until I...until...unti-

"How precocious. Give it a few more aeons before you attempt to understand my existence."

Wha...what was I thinking about? I felt a warm dampness on my upper lip and raised a hand to touch it. I gasped softly as I saw the source of the dampness on my hand. "Why is my nose bleeding?", I asked myself, my voice barely a whisper. Without warning, a sharp pain erupted in my head and I stumbled backwards, my hand reaching for something to steady me. I grabbed on to a young. shirtless blonde guy wearing a puka shell necklace and he nearly fell with me before I steadied myself. As I stood firmly on my feet, I tilted my head to look at him and he continued to stare upwards, his expression blank and dazed. I glanced around and realized it wasn't just him. Everyone was staring blankly upwards, even the capes. My eyes narrowed and I looked upwards at the most likely culprit. I realized the reason for everyone's unmoving silence wasn't fear. It was HER. 'Of course it's HER.', I thought to myself as I gazed at her chalk white form, my mind filled with hatred and anger. 'Who else would it be?'

"You're oddly obsessed with her. I suppose it makes sense. She did do some interesting things with your mind."

The Simurgh's head tilted even further upwards and her eyes opened, the expression on her face shifting from her usual bored expression to a curious, almost inquisitive stare.

The gaping void above twisted and there was suddenly an enormous weight pressing down upon me, nearly forcing me to my knees. Looking around, I realized that it wasn't just me feeling it. Everyone was either hunched over or on their knees, their eyes no longer dazed and unfocused. Even some flying capes were struggling to maintain their balance. The contradictory colorful/empty space shifted to a dark, bloody red and a figure slowly floated out from the breach directly above the Simurgh.

"Finally. You're here."

I squinted, struggling to make out their appearance. 'Who is that? Is it a new cape or something late to the fight?', I thought to myself, 'Fuck, I wish I could see.' "If you want."

And suddenly, I could. As if my eyes were binoculars, my vision zoomed in and I could suddenly see the figure as if he were right in front of me. What "...the hell is going on today? No. Not the time. Definitely not the time for this. Look at whoever that is up there. See what's going on. Freak out later.", I spoke to myself, trying to alleviate my stress.

"Wonderful. We're a match now."

It was a teenager, a boy at least a few years older than I was. He had snow white hair, inhuman black eyes with red pupils and pale skin with odd reddish-black veins and markings all over his body that were clearly visible against his ivory skin. His clothes were ripped and damaged but I could tell they were obviously well made. He wore an blue and black vest with a hood and tight fitting blue and black patterned pants with at least 3 loose belts hanging off his waist. He had no shirt underneath the vest, allowing me to see an odd Tinkertech device that looked like it was fused into his skin. It was a metallic Y-shaped device with small circles at each extremity and a large one at the center. All of them glowed red. On his arms, he had large manacles that each had a large red, pulsing circle. His legs bore the same.

As he drifted out, the jagged tear in space and time slowly closed behind him, leaving the sky whole once more.

Even though the breach had disappeared, the sky had not returned to it's normal blue. Instead, the sky was a deep red, the color of fresh blood. I looked closer and I realized why. Surrounding the new cape was a blood red aura that was at least twice his height. Somehow, he was changing the environment with his very existence. It flared like a bonfire as he floated closer to the Simurgh.

'Why is he moving like that? Doesn't he realize that's the Motherfucking Simurgh right there?', I was stunned at the cape's behavior. His appearance was odd enough, 'Odd, as if. Those black eyes and the creepy black veins are straight scary. Weird pupils.', but the way he was casually meandering toward HER was insane. 'It's like he has a death wish'

"Funny you should say that."

I noticed the capes in the air and the ground had begun striking and blasting at the Simurgh with their fists and powers but SHE simply lifted whatever was around her and deflected all of their strikes as easily as she did before, her gaze still firmly locked on the new cape. The capes began to pull back as they noticed she wasn't attacking them but the tension was still thick in the air.

The white haired cape reached Simurgh and they hung in the air, barely a few meters apart from each other. The Simurgh tilted her head and her expression of curiosity intensified, appearing almost frustrated. The cape stared back at Simurgh for roughly five seconds with the same blank stare he had when he appeared. Without warning, his face twisted into an angry grimace and he threw his head back and let out a bestial roar, a sound that literally shook the ground and made my teeth rattle. Before SHE could react, he punched the Simurgh in her stupid face. I felt an all-consuming sense of bloodlust and sheer rage backed by a primal feeling of impossible, inhuman POWER from the pale cape.

I watched the Pale Lady fly backwards for about a hundred feet before she caught herself and she began to hurl cars, rebar, trees and whatever was within range at him with her TK. The mystery cape made no effort to dodge as none of the debris even touched him. They came close, but they missed by just enough that the raging cape didn't have to move. The Simurgh flew back and I was stunned by how much damage had been done to her. Cracks covered her body, and parts of her had deep furrows and strips torn out of her. She began to ascend but the unknown cape MOVED, and was suddenly in front of the Simurgh once again. He roared and a sixty foot long gout of red and black flames shot from his mouth and completely covered the Simurgh. The fire faded and the Simurgh was still there, the flames apparently doing very little.

Most of her wounds had begun to heal and only a few small gashes on her body were left. He roared in anger and BLURRED and his fist slammed into her lily white body with such force and velocity that the ground hundreds of feet below began to shake and crack open. The buildings that the Simurgh did not entirely destroy began to crumble merely from the shockwave of his strikes. His entire body began to match the speed of his fists and feet and he started to move faster and faster, until he was completely invisible to my eyes. All I could see were the shockwaves from his hits and flashes of red on the Simurgh's body.

The ground below me was shaking and rumbling. I froze as I realized everyone around me was screaming. The people around me were terrified. 'Why wouldn't they be? Their entire lives are ruined and even if the Simurgh leaves, we're never getting out of Canberra.', I thought bitterly to myself, 'They're not even running all that fast for all the noise they're making." All of them were screaming and running around like lemmings, unsure of where to go for safety as everything seemed to be falling apart from the force of the fight.

The fight continued and the more the cape attempted to attack, the better the Simurgh began to respond. Every other strike began to miss, and the cape was being bombarded with steel rods that he merely slammed away with his bare fists. He dashed through the air towards the Simurgh like a giant bullet and was knocked back by a storm of of rebar, cars and glass that the Simurgh sent flying. Most of the items broke apart harmlessly on his durable skin but a thrown semi truck sent him hurtling into a half-demolished skyscraper, finishing the job.

He pulled himself from the rubble and shot at the Simurgh, roaring like a madman and was slammed skywards by the force of the Simurgh crashing an apartment building into him. The Simurgh tilted her head and simply ripped several massive steel girders and rods from the frame of a demolished skyscraper. They rotated around her for a few seconds before shooting towards the dazed berserker, each of them producing audible sonic booms from the force of the Simurgh's telekinetic thrust. Fortunately, the cape was quick to recover. With midair acrobatics that were amazing to watch, he dodged each and every one.

With the Simurgh's makeshift missiles rocketing into the atmosphere, he roared and his eyes began to glow a bright red. Multiple scarlet beams shot from his eyes towards the Simurgh. Most of them missed, scorching the ground and turning metal to slag. The few capes still in the midst of the fight between the two scrambled to escape the scarlet beams of fiery death. A few happened to hit the Simurgh, once again exposing her silvery insides for a second before they closed again.

As I watched the fight between the two, I noticed that the red aura around the new cape had dimmed and the sky seemed to be turning a lighter shade of red. Compared to how he was when this fight started mere minutes ago, he was barely half as fast. My eyes widened in shock. "Shit, is he...he's getting weaker!"

The white haired cape seemed to realize the same thing. He threw his head back and let out a roar once more. As he did so, thousands of marble sized red and black energy balls appeared above his mouth. With a blinding flash of red light, they were gone and the cape had a vicious grin on his face. I looked at the Simurgh and my eyes widened in shock. "Oh...my...god.",was all I could say. Half the Simurgh had completely vanished. Her entire lower half no longer existed. No legs, no lower wings, nothing below her waist was there at all. She looked like a statue someone had torn down. The Simurgh began to fly away at a high speed. The fact that she lacked half her wings didn't seem to be slowing her down in the slightest. He chased after her, screaming at the top of his lungs, unwilling to let her escape. Every charge, every lunge he made, every strike he threw at the Simurgh was dodged. He was too slow to touch her and the red continued to fade from the skies, and his aura continued to wane.

They climbed higher and higher and I continued to watch, my vision reaching distances that I knew would normally require a telescope. She struck him with her telekinesis repeatedly, striking him with bits of metal, ripping apart his clothing and cutting him. For the first time since he had appeared, I saw him bleed. She threw an eighteen-wheeler at him, impacting him full force and he was sent flying upwards. She descended to the ground and she hung in the air, barely a hundred feet above the ground. The pale berserker recovered from her assault and his wounds healed over quicker than hers had and flew down to her, determined to finish what he had started. The White Angel face moved upwards toward the approaching cape and she...smiled at him.

I looked upwards and began to shake in fear. Every single item she had thrown at him in the fight hung several miles above the city, held aloft only by HER will...and then they began to fall directly towards him. The cape continued to rush towards the Simurgh, completely oblivious of his impending doom. 'I have to warn him. I need to.' I gritted my teeth and I steeled myself, took a deep breath and prepared to let out a warning yell only to be interrupted by a female cape on the ground screaming out, "BEHIND Y-", before she was permanently silenced. The white haired cape paused and glanced towards the direction where the screaming cape formerly was only to see the bloody steel girder impaled four feet in the ground. A look of realization slowly crossed his face and he whipped around to gaze skyward only to be struck by a falling cement mixer.

I winced at the sound of his pained scream and he began to free fall. He crashed into the ground, carving out a deep trench with the force of his landing, and made and attempt to get up. He tried to move but a hail of cars, trucks, boats, houses, brick, rebar, girders, steel, iron, glass, wood, concrete prevented him from taking a single step. The barrage felt like it went on for hours despite the fact that it had been barely over a minute. Thousands of makeshift missiles rained down on him with sounds of thunder, leaving massive craters in the ground. With every powerful crash, the red began to fade from the sky until the sky was as blue as it had been in the beginning.

Eventually, it stopped. Minutes passed without any sign of movement from the massive mountain of rubble that entombed the white haired cape and the Simurgh, still legless, began to float away as gracefully as ever. 'Is he...?', I wondered to myself, 'Could he possibly be dead? Could anyone survive that?'

As if in response to my question, the mountain of debris began to rumble and the Simurgh paused and turned around in the air. Her face had a look that I could only describe as a mix of annoyance and exasperation. In an explosion of blue light, the cape burst out from underneath his prison, sending debris and detritus flying.

His appearance had changed. The white had vanished from the majority of his hair, leaving only a thick white skunk stripe in the middle of his now black hair. The black veins that had stood out so firmly against his pale skin had disappeared. His eyes had shifted to a stunning, vibrant blue and the devices on his chest and limbs had lost their red glow, dimming to a pale blue. His scarlet aura had disappeared and the rage and madness in his eyes had disappeared, leaving behind a steely determination.

Raising his gloved hand to his face, he wiped blood away from his mouth and smirked. "Alright, bitch. Let's finish this." And with that said, he vanished in a blue flash of light.