Chapter 12: Don't Forget The Rules
"The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms -- hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal."
-James Thurber
"It'll be all right." Savior said to himself as he dragged himself up the stairs. "Maybe I was wrong! Maybe I was being tricked! And once I save Raven, we can stop John...take all this back...I'll accept my punishment...kick me out, put me in jail...I...would probably do it all over again if I had to..."
One of the stairs gave out, sending Noel's leg crunching through it. Savior barely seemed to notice, as he pulled the scraped-up limb free and kept going up. He couldn't delay any more. After putting Robin out of his misery, he'd gotten up, looking at the dark night sky above him, still covered with clouds, and the empty beach that lead to a road in the distance. He was outside, free, and for a moment Noel had considered going onward, getting help. He'd even started walking away from the hotel for a brief moment of time...before he collapsed again, blood and worse spilling from his mouth as he coughed. The cough made him change his mind: he couldn't risk it. Hell, he'd probably already wasted too much time with the short distance he'd gone. He had to go back, find Raven. And so, he'd turned around and gone back.
The trip to the stairs had taken four times as long as it normally would have, with his injuries and his senses randomly dulling, leaving his mind awash in gray fog before he struggled through it. Another weight that Noel bore, as he crawled up the stairs.
"And if...there's no taking it back...don't you see...don't you see..." Savior rasped. "Our world...death is not absolute. Raven is our magician...our link to unnatural forces...this is ALL unnatural, it's controlling everything...HAD to save her, she would be the only one who could find a way to reverse it...she would find a way, there must be a way...I'll give up anything to do it...my life...my soul...anything...it was the only way...the ONLY way to save you all..no other routes...but to her...she HAD to live...and to make sure...if you only could have understood...if only...if only..."
The top of the stairs loomed. Savior made the last few steps on his hands and knees, pulling himself back up via a piece of the broken balcony and stumbling over to the wall, where he leaned on it as he pushed himself along.
"...you'll see...I'll bring you all back...somehow...Superman came back...wait he wasn't technically dead...Jordon came back...wait he technically wasn't truly dead either...Queen. He was dead. Gone. Resting in his great reward...he was brought back...he resumed the cause...it can be done, it WILL..."
And Savior stepped through the double doors at the top of the balcony.
And saw the yellow dots on the floor.
And at the sight of them, Savior found one last jolt of energy, as he staggered down their length, following them back into the hallway he'd walked down a moment before, not paying any attention to anything else save them.
"...it's not as simple...as murder...I couldn't save...mom...no matter how many lives I took...hate me if you will...maybe I am a monster...a traitor...but understand it wasn't just that...the road to hell...may be paved...with good intentions..." Savior whispered, as he followed the yellow dots around the corner of a hallway. "...oh God...Raven...how do I tell her? What if she won't listen to me? Her wrath...I'll take it but...she needs to understand...why I did it...can she...she has to play her own role, this was all for her...she needs to fix it..."
And a thought occurred to Noel: what if she already knew?
...would that be any better? Would her anger over Noel's choice be any less terrible?
...Noel didn't know.
But he'd come this far. As long as she understood what she had to do, it would be worth it.
He might have paved yet another road to hell, but no one ever said all roads led one way...
And the yellow dots stopped. Savior stared at the door they led to. It looked like any other door they had passed by before...which made perfect sense, as Savior grasped the handle.
Had any Titan tried to open the door before now, they would have found it locked. And unlike some earlier assessments, it seemed like there had been one last door and wall reinforcement done: for the door and walls around this room. There would have been no forcing it.
But force was not needed, as Savior opened the door.
And found what had once been a manager's office...and was now just like the many other ruined rooms of the Whannel Hotel, covered in filth and debris that had once been furniture.
Savior's heart plunged: no Raven. It was...
...just part of what lay in the room. Another door was at its end.
Savior pushed through the debris to the second door, noting it looked considerably heavier, like the door that had led to Cyborg's security room. A panic room, most likely. For a moment, fresh fear bloomed in Savior's heart that he'd have to find a key...
But it was baseless, as he seized the long knob-handle and pressed down, and heard the tumblers inside the door snap open. There was no lock.
"...Raven...!" Savior called as he pulled the door open. "I'm here...!"
There was no answer, as Savior slipped around the door.
"Raven?"
No answer.
As Raven sat in the chair in the panic room, her head bowed.
"Raven!" Savior said, as he stumbled in, falling at her feet. "I made it...I...it's all done now...where are the antidotes, do you know, I'm...in a bad way..."
Savior looked around the room, looking for a table, a box, anything...what were all these drawings on the wall, they looked oddly familiar...
"...Raven...do you know...are you...?" Savior said, as he looked back at Raven...
And realized her head was still down. She had yet to look at him.
"...Raven?"
Raven said nothing.
Raven did nothing.
And as Noel's vision blurred and then re-focused, he finally saw the stance of her body.
Limp. Motionless. Unresponsive.
"...Raven?" Savior said, as he reached up and shook her, as the chains on Raven's wrists clattered lightly. Raven did not respond.
As Savior lifted her head up.
And looked into her lifeless eyes, and the path the tears had traced down her face.
She'd never given up.
But her wind had come too late. She had remained inactive too long. The poison had run too deep.
She'd never given up. Never given in to the pain.
But even as she made it down to the last few centimeters of her chains, she felt the darkness clawing at her, pulling her down. She'd fought and screamed and cursed.
But in the end, it had her.
So close...
And yet so far...
As she went down.
Blackness.
Burning, suffocating blackness.
"...no." Savior whispered.
Not this. Any fate, any punishment, any condemnation...but NOT THIS.
NOT ALL FOR NOTHING.
It was a trick, a final test, one last drop in Jigsaw's bucket of atrocity. Savior slapped himself, hammered on his injured cheek, trying to force himself back into proper reality, to not be fooled...
...but there was nothing to fool.
Raven was de-
NO SHE WASN'T!
"Wake up!" Savior said, as he seized Raven and shook her. No response. He slapped her across the face. Nothing.
"...on the edge...have to...WHERE ARE THE ANTIDOTES!" Savior screamed as he reared up and tore through the room, hunting for the syringes, what he'd been promised, they were here, the tape had SAID...!
The tape had said John had the antidotes ON him.
And John wasn't here.
And it was too late...
No. The symbols. Maybe they had something to do with it! They had to just be in this room for a reason!
Savior furiously attacked the first symbol he came to, clawing at it with his right hand (his left hand was far too mangled to function in such a way). The symbol broke apart under his desperation-fueled slashings...but nothing changed, as Savior moved onto the next symbol, and then the next one on the door itself, ripping them apart...
And nothing changed. Savior sank to his knees, looking at his bloody fingers before he crawled back over to Raven.
"Wake up please..." Savior begged, as fresh streams began running from his face. His tear ducts, raw and strained, had seemingly been utterly exhausted with Robin, but he was also wrong there, as they mixed with the blood on his face and dripped down onto the floor. "Please...I'll die...anything...just wake up...wake up..."
No answer. Savior took Raven's hand and clutched it to his face, trying to will anything, the faintest spark, the tiniest bloom...
Nothing.
He'd killed all his friends for a corpse.
Raven was dead.
"...............................................I'm sorry..." Savior said, as he bowed his head, still holding her hand to his face. "I...I should have...should have...should have killed myself. Should have left it to them...oh God what have I done...I'm so sorry...I'm...I'm..."
He was going to just sit there and die.
How could he...
How COULD he...
....NO.
And as Noel looked back up, he felt no more pain, no more exhaustion, no more weakness and despair, all of it burned away by a rage that rivaled anything any god or devil had ever felt.
His body began screaming in utter agony, even the deadened nerves set alight by what exploded in him.
But his fury was so great that even that soul-destroying pain was cowed by it.
"JOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
And the Shimmer came, erupting out through his body and tearing across the entire room, ripping the remaining symbols apart as the blades tore through the steel surrounding Noel. If Noel had had any sense, he would have seen the holes shot through his power, like rotting wounds infected with gangrene. The damage the poison within him had done to the nerve-based energy was as terrible as what it had done to Noel's mind: It's lashings were its last gasp, called out through a blockage it had only punched through by destroying all the surrounding areas.
But all Noel had was the rage, and his one final goal on this planet.
"JOHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
And somewhere...John stood in the dark. Watching on his sole monitor.
His face bore no joy. No fear. No disappointment.
Just, as always, the analyzing gaze.
As he reached down and pressed one final button.
And Savior turned from his final failure and ripped his way through the manager's office, his overwhelming anger fighting with his disintegrating nervous system with every step he took. But Savior was beyond any pain now.
He was going to find John. And no matter what it took, he was going to destroy him. Whether it reversed everything or not, Savior didn't know or care.
John Kramer would die. Savior didn't care if he had to rip the whole hotel apart, if he had to claw onward until there was nothing left of him but bones and rage. He would find John, and he would show him the unspoken rule of his game: heroes did not lose. They may fail and die, but they never...
...dots.
There were more dots down the hallway.
Leading away from the room.
As Savior realized that this wasn't a case of one-moment-too-late. This had all long been planned and set up.
And the rage blasted through him even more savagely, as the Shimmer tore down the hallway, ripping into the walls to drag Savior along. What did this lead to? Another tape? Some summoned monster, a dip finally into another film series, to finish him off? Another gun with instructions to do himself in? If John thought he was...
And Savior pulled himself around another corner.
And found the dots leading to the wall.
What had ONCE been a wall.
In reality, it had been a carefully camouflaged door, much like the one that had led Rob out of Noel's never-done trap, slid open to reveal a deeply shadowed room within.
And in the light that shone into the room, John Kramer, Jigsaw, stood illuminated in his crimson robe.
And despite all his anger, for a moment Noel hesitated. This couldn't be what it appeared to be...
WHO CARED KILL KILL KILL KILL...!
And so Savior tore down the hallway towards John. The gamesmaster didn't move...
As Savior's body suddenly went numb, and the Shimmer broke apart and dumped Noel onto the ground a few feet from the door.
His anger may have been truly mighty, but even it could only hold the tide of damage at bay for so long, especially when said anger greatly exacerbated the damage it was trying to hold back. And he'd broken down, as the pain returned, and his blood flowed...
But despite it all, Savior kept moving, as he began crawling towards John.
"...you....BASTARD." Savior snarled. "YOU...PROMISED...!"
"I didn't promise you anything Noel." John said.
"You...Raven..." Noel gasped, and then vomited more blood out onto the floor, the retching briefly silencing his words as he lay on the ground.
"...she was...stuck in a chair...stationary...no movement...even considering what I have...she shouldn't have died...shouldn't have...was it all a lie?" He whispered.
"Yes."
Savior was struck silent: despite his accusation, that was not the answer he'd been expecting. Jigsaw was capable of muddying an issue...but outright lying? That went against all he stood for.
"...you...after all that about...helping...teaching...it was all bullshit?"
"The only lie I told you was of the existence of those antidotes for you and Raven. I meant what I said in my criticism of your so-called mission, and it would be against my creed to set up a test that could not be survived... but these circumstances have led me to make an exception."
"...WHAT?" Noel gasped.
"You didn't find it strange that of all the pitiful people in this city, that I chose you? Surely the criminals in this city, such as the HIVE or other idiots wasting their lives, would be more suitable for my games. They need to learn, to be rehabilitated, much more than any of you Titans, even if you do just exacerbate the problem. You're the strategic expert, Noel." John said. "Why would I choose you Titans instead of someone more deserving, then put you in a test that had no chance of your survival?"
"You...you..." Savior gasped, more blood leaking from his mouth as the numbness began growing within him again, and his crawl towards John slowed even more, even though Noel was by now partly through the doorway...as he realized the truth. "...IT WASN'T YOUR CHOICE."
"Of course not. While you children have a lot to learn... I am hardly an appropriate teacher. Your delusions about the world aside, you value your lives. You were certainly willing to kill each other for them, given the right incentive. In the end, you won out, Noel. Had you all realized this was not my doing to begin with, however, you and Raven would have been the only casualties..."
"...you couldn't have...even a genius couldn't predict with certainty that I'd...choose what I did..."
"I didn't have to. Human nature isn't as complex as people try to make it out to be. Social norms and culture attempt to redirect or mold it into something else, but in the end, everyone has a base desire to save what he or she values most. If you were my only target, I would have just ransomed your antidote and let you shoot yourself. You value your life, but not more than the Titans' lives." John said. "No, I needed everyone dead. So all I had to do was separate you from Raven, include her in the ransom, and you would take care of the rest. It's human nature. Simple and predictable."
"But you...you don't exist..." Noel gasped. "You're energy cast in lies, the face of an actor's efforts...you're smoke, nothing more then a mirror image of a movie creation..you can't go against his character, his character is all you ARE...his character shouldn't...have killed all my friends...shouldn't have attacked us...to begin with..."
Silence.
"...it made you more, didn't it?" Noel said. "And its price...was what's been paid."
"It gave me a test. I could have refused and faded into the darkness... but instead I set up a game for myself and 10 "heroes". If they all ended up dead in the end, I would not only survive, it would ensure my disease would not end my life as it's supposed to." John said.
"............and what if...I'd failed...and they hadn't..."
"You killed most of them with a gun. Without your powers or proper defenses, and after sustaining all that damage, every Titan you didn't kill would have only needed to be shot. I may be old, but I can certainly handle a gun. Luckily for me, you saved me the hassle."
And as Noel looked up at John, the numbness growing ever stronger and farther through his body, he realized just how easily he'd been turned into a weapon. And it wasn't even for a misguided cause. Just the pure naked survival of a madman.
"..................I can't bring my friends back can I...it was all...part of your lie..."
"From what it told me, those reversals all occurred when whatever enemy you faced came in contact with its source: a videotape, DVD, or video game. Didn't you ever wonder why I didn't just convert your Tower to fit my game instead of moving you all here... where there's no such media to be found?"
Noel couldn't move any more.
"...oh you bastard...you MURDERER..." He whispered.
"Me? You all had enough information to figure this out on your own. It wasn't the same as it was in past years. Your assumptions and flaws are the only thing to blame here. After all, if you had just stopped and done some thinking, all of your teammates, save you and Raven of course, would still be alive." John said. "I am not a murderer. I was ready to kill you all to ensure my survival. I had a purpose I meant to achieve. But in the end, I only killed you and Raven with that poison. You killed all of them for nothing, and lacked even the strength to thoroughly think it through before committing yourself to it. All I did was give you a gun and tell you that Raven was going to die. You did the rest on your own. You are the murderer, Noel."
And Noel lifted up a hand, helplessly grasping at John.
And then fell flat, his body going limp, as his head dropped to the ground. He did not move again.
"...And it seems that I've passed my test. It's too bad you couldn't be rewarded for passing yours." John said, as he turned around and turned the sole monitor in the room off and picking up his pig-mask before turning back as he began to leave...
As Noel's arm thrust back up...and rammed itself into the ground.
"Game's...NOT...DONE...YET...!" Noel hissed, as he began pushing himself up.
(And to Saw fans, this is right around where "Hello Zepp" begins to play...)
"You...see us as children...well John...there are...three ways for a child...to end a game...they win...they lose...or they kick the board over and render it all...pointless...!" Noel hissed as he slowly got up. The pain, the numbness, none of it had faded...but the rage, the vengeance, had managed to swing ahead one last time. For one last move. "I'm...not...done...yet...and I'm not...GOING TO HELL...BY MYSELF!"
And for the first time, John's ever-passive, ever-controlled expression, broke, just a bit, as a new emotion finally made its way onto his features, a look of stunned surprise.
The pig mask fell at John's feet.
It wasn't much, but to Noel it was everything.
"We...don't lose." Noel said. "We may be killed...we may be tainted, be ruined...but one way...or another...we don't lose!"
And suddenly confronted by the defiance that a supervillain of the world he'd come to would have anticipated, John stepped back as he twisted his wrist, as a knife on a battle gauntlet beneath snapped out, as he slashed out at Savior's face...
Savior caught his wrist with his right hand.
"Now I see why you hide behind traps."
And the Shimmer surged up for one last effort, as it snapped the blade of John's wrist-gauntlet off before Savior backhanded Jigsaw, knocking him on the ground before him.
"You win John. And you lose." Savior said, as the Shimmer surged out and formed into a giant blade.
John stared up at Savior, as he raised the blade.
"GAME-!"
And the wires impacted on Noel's neck, and Savior's final efforts were suddenly overwhelmed by paralyzing pain, as the electricity shot through his body with a force so potent it smashed all his rage and hate to nothing, as all the strength left his legs and he collapsed before John in turn.
"Wha-AUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Savior screamed as he was shocked again.
John slowly got back up, picking up his fallen mask as he did so, as Savior agonized, the debilitating energy pinning him to the ground, his dying Shimmer unable to guard him as it normally would.
"...how...how...!" Savior said, as he tried to turn his head.
One more shock hit him, leaving him thrashing on the ground...as the other crimson-robed figure stepped from the shadows, features concealed by a pig-mask...and a gloved hand holding a taser. Cyborg's favorite taser, to be precise, as Savior stared in sudden horrified realization.
...and he can have assistants to do the leg work...
"...No...no not...!"
The second figure zapped Noel again, as he helplessly danced at the hands of the electricity, as the pain and numbness surged back over him...with the numbness overtaking the pain.
"...noooooooooo..." Noel wept. Not like this...
...the Saw series loved last-minute twists...
"It seems you were wrong, 'Savior'." John said, as he stepped around Noel's twitching body to stand by the other figure's side. "I didn't think you'd be capable of summoning that sort of strength again, but I doubt that your nervous system can handle the damage from the toxin and those shocks combined."
"I...I..." Noel wheezed. The darkness was coming. It would be here soon.
"It's not that you and your teammates didn't value your lives, Noel." John said, as he and his assistant, whoever it was, Amanda, Hoffman, a faceless entity animated by the terrible evil that had finally tasted triumph, began leaving the room, as Noel reached out towards them, the Shimmer emerging...
And breaking apart, vanishing into the ether. Unlike the last time, Noel was not hiding a recovery. This time, he really didn't have anything left.
"It's simply that you didn't value them as much as I value mine. I arranged everything so in the end, one way or another, you would all die." John said.
Savior looked at John with his final surge of horror, as he tried to bargain, plead, beg, with any force that was out there that he could live one minute more, ten seconds, three seconds, to stop this hypocrite, this monster, before he unleashed himself on an unknowing world, before he brought his suffering backed by an inhuman, unfathomably powerful evil, onto all the innocents he dared to judge, judgment he wasn't worthy to wield, and yet wielded so very well...
...but there was no answer.
Save the darkness.
Laughing at him.
"You learned the value of survival, Noel." John said, as he placed his hand on the door. "And you've lost."
"NO, NOOOOOO!" Savior screamed: how could he die like this, how could he fail...how could he LOSE?
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Blackness.
Burning, suffocating blackness.
"GAME OVER!"
And the door slammed shut.
(...Credits begin rolling, as Disturbed's "Guarded" begins playing)
Subject: Paul Stallberg
Test: Escape razor wire maze in three hours.
Result: Failed
Subject: Mark Rodriguez
Test: Decipher combination to safe with key; numbers on wall; shattered glass on floor; doused in flammable jelly and carrying candle.
Result: Failed
Subject: Amanda Young
Test: Jaw splitter; must retrieve key from stomach of "dead" cellmate.
Result: Passed
Subject: Detectives Steven Sing and David Tapp
Test 1: Power drills on each side of subject Jeff's head, and strapped to chair; must be released by detectives.
Result 1: Passed
Test 2: Avoid quadruple shotgun trip wires.
Test 2: Failed (Sing)/ Passed (Tapp)
Subject: Zep Hindle
Test: Monitor Gordon and Faulkner to ensure they conduct the test properly; kill Gordon's family if he fails.
Result: Failed
Subject: Michael
Test: Remove right eye in order to get the key to remove the Venus fly trap mask.
Result: Failed
Subject: SWAT
Test: Avoid trap stair with electrified fence.
Result: Failed
Subject: Obi
Test: Furnace; bypass the flames in order to shut off the gas feeding them.
Result: Failed
Subject: Xavier
Test 1: Retrieve the key to a safe containing the antidote to the poison gas from a pit of needles.
Result 1: Passed
Test 2: Survive the others in the house and retrieve an antidote.
Result 2: Failed
Subject: Gus and Addison
Test: Razor box containing glued antidote; key behind the box would open the top safely.
Result: Gus failed before reaching trap. Failed by Addison.
Subject: Laura and Jonas
Test: Retrieve an antidote and survive the others in the house.
Result: Failed
Subject: Detective Eric Matthews
Test 1: Listen to Jigsaw so his son would be revealed and neither he nor anyone of his crew would be in danger.
Result 1: Failed
Test 2: Escape the bathroom by any means necessary before dying.
Result 2: Passed
Subject: Daniel Matthews
Test: Survive others in the house with Amanda by any means necessary.
Result: Passed
Subject: Marissa Mori
Test: Escape bunker filling with hot tar before drowning or burning to death.
Result: Failed
Subject: Sophie Matthews
Test: Escape strap table by any means necessary.
Result: Passed
Subject: Robert Candide
Test: Escape impalement chair.
Result: Passed
Subject: Nigel Hastings (Nigicalnack Hastionfarlock)
Test: Escape elevator and bomb.
Result: Passed
Subject: Victor Stone
Test: Remove body parts until he finds combination to safe containing the antidote.
Result: Passed
Subject: Tara Markov
Test: Match 6 hidden keys to safe with antidote and door to exit while walking on floor with tar, nails, and glass.
Result: Passed
Subject: Garfield Logan
Test: Fight and kill a rabid bear to retrieve antidote in wax in its stomach.
Result: Passed
Subject: Kory Anders (Koriand'r)
Test: Climb electrified cage to retrieve antidotes in a cooler hanging over the roof.
Result: Passed
Subject: Tim Drake
Test: Pass through wire/blow torch trap to retrieve antidote and key before the oxygen runs out.
Result: Passed
Subject: Raven
Test: Sacrifice humanity to gain enough demonic power to escape on her own and stop Noel.
Result: Failed
Subject: Noel Collins
Test: Kill each Titan to gain an antidote for himself and Raven.
Result: Passed.
Test 2: Escape John and leave hotel.
Result: FAILED
"YOU DID DECIDE!"
"The tragedy of life is not that man loses, but that he almost wins."
-Heywood Broun
THE END
(Or so the readers thought, when this was originally posted on Oct 31st 2008, having been told the whole time there would only be twelve parts to the story. You, later reader, know by the chapter headings you have seen that this did not turn out to be true. While you cannot be surprised like many other readers surely were the next day, you can still see how this truly ends. Read on...)
