Vicious-The Fall From Heaven

Vicious awoke, sweating...the bed damp despite the frigidity of the room in general. Breathing hard, taking a long time to fight the urge to whisper Her name as he had done long ago. There was no love...no warmth in the desire, or indeed for Her in general but yet Vicious craved her softness, her warmth, her love and all the emotions she had helped him nearly feel. Julia...

A music box small echoes a haunting tune...Julia's smile, Spike's grinning...gunshots...sex...death, the dream ends the same...Spike insists on going alone and is gunned down...I always try stop him...then he limps to Julia's place, a gentle shell instead his raging spirit, dead...

"I watched you die...Yet. You. Live."

Vicious spoke out loud, unable to bottle his frustration any further...

In his memory Spike had succumbed to his wounds. Vicious had watched, for the first time saddened, as Spike had simply stopped fighting death and accepted it...had seen everything slowly stop as Spike bled away. Yet a few days later Spike was alive and well, Vicious couldn't ever know for sure which of them was truly dreaming. They met a day or so later, nothing was as it was. Spike had seemed numb, dozy, drugged, unresponsive and devoid of passion...the list went on and on and on. Vicious saw how Julia doted on Spike, found him to be interesting and slowly coaxed the new Spike out-he hated her for interfering like that, the Spike she loved was not the Spike Vicious knew...or had known. Vicious had taken Spike aside and whispered soft, yet hard and threatening. On the same day, Julia had given Vicious a music box.

"Spike...be careful when you're with that woman."

It was like watching a dream, a dream Vicious couldn't wake up from and he hated it. A black, icy hatred that no source of warmth could hope to thaw, watching Spike become a beast without fangs with no explanation to how he was still alive other than he simply was. Everyone-the Elders, Shin, Linn, Annie-considered Spike to be dead, it was as though they could not see him when he was in a room, as though Spike were a ghost or the remnant of some dream. Mou was the only person other than Vicious and Julia who insisted Spike was alive and that he could sense it. Yet when Vicious saw Spike, he saw a man who could not be described as alive-pale, different coloured eyes, unkempt hair and Spike could only be described to be still here, as though his soul had simply refused to move on. Spike's eyes were a source of fascination for most, he claimed they gave him foresight and hindsight-he could see the future and the past, Julia once told Vicious that staring into Spike's eyes was like watching a dream. Vicious had gone at once, and done the same thing, yet he felt nothing. Spike had smiled then, a shadow of his old smile, and spoke softly.

"You won't see anything Vicious, your past and mine is irrelevant to you, the future does not concern you...your one of the few people who are truly in the now...but looking upon you Vicious, sometimes I pity you."

"You're the one that needs the pity Spike; you're a beast who's lost his fangs."

"You're the snake, Vicious, with fangs of poison-sooner or later you bring death to us all."

"I've kept you alive."

"You satisfied yourself with a hundred lesser men. I was only safe with you because I offered you other, more numerous prey."

"You're no better Spike; your bullets would have ripped me to shreds like claws if we hadn't made our alliance...or is it a friendship..."

"Well we've lived this far...never forget Vicious, only you may kill me. Only I may kill you."

A lot of people thought that Vicious was a red eye addict; he had used it in the past. It had no effect on him, despite the fact it did with everyone else in the syndicate who used it. The Syndicate medical staff had told him in no uncertain terms he was truly a freak. Vicious response times were inhumanly high, to a similar degree to red eye users. Similar to Spike's, except that his were partly due to an eye implant. It was this kind of thing that convinced Vicious long ago he was simply a born killer-freakish reaction times, skill but then all this fused with the anger made him something inhuman. Not that Vicious cared. There was no explanation, it was just the way the universe at large seemed to have envisioned him, and thus he was. After the first killing spree, Vicious was released from prison when the syndicate decided that such talent should not go to waste. At last Vicious had a purpose, but it hadn't been enough and he wanted more and more...to consume the Red Dragon like a malignant cancer and feast upon it until he emerged as the snake at the heart of it all, the leader of the clan.

Vicious, in his despair, had been tempted many times to suicide. The music box bomb Julia had given him had tempted him during the War of Titan especially. Vicious new instantly, from the sound of the mechanical workings that it was an explosive. Julia either meant to kill him, or had simply given him the means to do it himself. It played the haunting tune that bore her name; countless times Vicious thought about her and played the box, only stopping it at the very last second to avoid the explosion. Again and again...until the day a naive young solider Gren had commented on it, Vicious had given up that chance of death and passed it on to another, death was the only thing in this world Vicious could give. Gren would want death after Vicious real business on Titan became apparent; he was not the hero Gren had believed in. Indeed Vicious, in an act of spite, had framed Gren for his own crimes in the hope that Gren might be free of his delusions about death, honour and comrades. The stink of death, the screams of death merely exposed what Vicious knew to be. You die sooner, you die later-life remains a fragile farce. Vicious himself had found Bloodlust Rubies, massive mining stockpiles, which were used as a base ingredient for Red Eye.

The greedy Elders commended him, forcing smiles and congratulatory tones at a job well done despite their sincere hope he would die on that god forsaken rock. Secretly Vicious wished he'd died, but death could only come at worthy foes hand. The Red Dragon Syndicate had eaten the planet-mined its resources and exploited its people with rackets from gambling, prostitution, slavery and funding corrupt regimes. The money from Red Eye had rebuilt Titan, but it was not built to realise the veterans or the dead's hope for a better world, it was built as shining metropolis of crime and illicit pleasures, truly a gem in the Red Dragon's empire, that no law or decent person would go near. A job well done, Vicious smirked at the phrase in the darkness, remembering the defeated look of the girls of the planet as they became dancers and prostitutes, the suicides of their father's and the blood feuds led by their brothers. The planet was stretched taut with the anguished cry of thousands of rapes and murders, of addicts with a chorus of haughty laughs from the fat politicians and bosses who reaped the rewards. Millions of lives ruined or gone, the galaxy was a better place to live.

Suddenly leaping up, grabbing his katana Vicious walked quickly towards the hanger section. Vicious kept to the shadows, not wanting to draw attention, a sudden realisation hitting him. Reaching his ship he keyed the computer, the ship slowly hummed to life as the engines began to flare and whir as though Vicious's very purpose had passed on into them. The computer responded as it always did.

Pilot Id...Vicious.

You may not take off until you have chosen a Red Dragon Syndicate job and destination. Currently listed are:

[Earth] [Titan]-

Vicious didn't allow the computer to finish the listing, he keyed Titan as soon as it appeared because something drew him towards the planet, and a mission was as good a reason to visit it as any, though something else spurred him on, though he couldn't quite remember what.

Titan selected...mission parameters and details will be listed only upon on entering hyperspace.

Vicious headed towards the gate, grin slowly playing upon his features. Then he realised, Vicious always got the feeling when Julia or Spike were near, could always manage to intercept transmissions and clues as to where they might be found. This visit to Titan, he thought, might be far more eventful than I ever envisioned...he gripped his katana. You'd better not let me down Spike...