Authors Notes:
Sorry for the delay. Had to take a little while to acclimate to school again. Standard disclaimers; it's not a gem and so forth.
Also, let me say that I know what Harle looked like in the game, and the way she talked. I've studied her to a fanatical (and downright disturbing) level, so be aware that everything stated here that does not seem to parallel the Harle you know is a very deliberate act.
Now, since someone who shall not be named *cough* Karen ~*~ Harlequin *cough* stole my only decent Lovecraftian phrase "That is not dead which may eternal lie, and through strange aeons even death may die..." I'll have to come up with a new parting quote. Arigato, and Ja Ne.
*Update*
01.25.01
I think I have most of the errors worked out now, so its fairly safe to read. I also converted it to rich text (I've been using Notepad until now, it never crashes). I'm toying with the notion of adding onto the ending, but I really don't expect any repeat readers, so that would only serve to confuse people reading the next chapter. Oh yes, to those that inquired, it was 'beat the shit out of Ark' day.
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She passed through the golden light, her fingers closing something that seemed to wither with life... it seemed to try to get away, but while it's powers were great they were sorely unfocused. They... It was calling her again. She shot upwards, pausing only long enough to slap that dog of a girl that would have destroyed herself and everyone else along with her. She passed through the ceiling, and through countless levels of technology and dead. The latter reached out with their many insubstantial hands as if to stop her, but she was faster and stronger.
As she cleared the last hurdle of technology, the powers she served became impatient and pulled her to them. The movement was so quick it left even her disoriented... so it took her a moment to realize she was within the Time Devourer itself. The Frozen Flame was gone, and she could feel her mind reach out and connect to a greater gestalt entity. She had expected a babble of voices, all six of the Masters arguing amongst themselves, but instead she only heard one.
She became aware, even as she drifted into the sea of consciousness, her mind diffusing and mingling with the Other's, that this was not what she had wanted. She had been human, an individual, far too long to sacrifice that uniqueness. She realized vaguely that the Masters must have been constantly suppressing that line of thought from her mind for some time. She tried desperately to establish a point of concentration, a point that would let her retain some sense of self, and to a degree succeeded.
"I\we have seen\precieved a\the threat." The gestalt rumbled. "The Tower's mirror\reflection\opposition must be\shall be eliminated." Harle tried to make sense of the words, her being still too scattered too... 'No! Not zSerge I 'all not let you!' she reached out and tried to stop the gestalt, but found she was only a mote in an expanse of vast, nearly unimaginable power.
What was left of her being began to collapse, she couldn't exert her will in two places at once. But to her credit, she tried to the last. She went down silently screaming, as if torn underwater by a violent undertow. She felt herself begin to stretch out...
There was nothing poetic or beautiful about death, she had learned that after watching Serge and Sir Lynx fight. Her being had screamed at her to do something, knowing to do so would be to invoke Their wrath. Death was the ending of life, of consciousness, of self. She hadn't gotten to say her good-byes, hadn't been able to save Sir Lynx, Serge, or ultimately, herself.
In that moment, the distorted caricature that had been Harle shattered.
***
High above Chronopolis the Time Devourer hovered, a glassy concentration of energy in it's mouth, seeming to quiver for release. For a moment, all was still. Even the birds, sensing imending destruction, had left. The massive, unearthly creature wavered about, as if indecisive. Then with an unearthly scream wrent the air, and the huge black thing flipped over and sped for the horizen, where the Tower waited.
Deep within it, the Frozen Flame blazed in outrage.
Battles were fought, lost. Ultimately the only thing left was rebirth.
Elsgod03 - Enter the Third
Ark breathed in the salty sea air, and wondered if it would be worth it. He sat on a small raft he had 'borrowed' in Termina. Above him, in all its haunting beauty, was the Tower. At least he assumed it was called the 'Tower', he had such trouble remembering the specifics of the dream. The dream... which had come to him in a Porre inn, on the first night in a long while he hadn't been drunk. The dream had been vague and indistinct, but in it this 'Tower' had been pictured, and then there had been a feeling of great power. Perhaps powers that could help him, it was... familiar.
He had wandered from Porre to Termina, travelling as a 'guest' to a merchant. After having to hide in a ship's hold for three days straight with something that burned his eyes and nostrils, he had decided that the next trip would have to be taken in a much faster, and broadly unknown way. As he looked up at the Tower, hovering hundreds of feet above the Earth, he knew that he would have to use that unknown method much quicker, and with a narrower degree of accuracy, than he would have liked.
He had no way of measuring the distance to the top of the tower, were there was presumebly an entrance, but he tried anyway. Then he took a deep breath, feeling a little foolish as he did, and detached himself from space\time.
Floatingsearchingfinding.
The breath was sucked out of his lungs instantly. For a moment he flailed madly, grabbing for something, anything. Then he opened his eyes. Falling through the sky! There, far below him, was the Tower, no bigger then his thumb. He had to shift... but he couldn't concentrate! Panic had grabbed him, and refused to let go. He tried to steady himself, but ended up tumbling even faster than before. Focusfocusfocusfocus... the last thing he saw were towering thunderheads, building in the distance.
Floatingsearchingfinding.
There was only pain, all encompassing and mind numbing, as he moved his entire being into solid rock. The pain was brief, only lasting until the body was full formed, but it was complete. Then he died, his mind floating free...
Floatingsearchingfinding.
This time he appeared almost twenty feet from what later turned out to be an entrance. He could have probably stopped himself just before he hit the water smooth stone, to disappear from space only to reappear a moment later all forces of inertia negated, but he was still numb from his last attempt, and death. He allowed his body to fall with a sickening crack to the Tower.
Laying on a broken foot, atop a floating tower that shouldn't have been, Ark cringed and hissed, spittle flying through his teeth. His leg, thankfully only one, was broken. No, the more appropriate term would be 'shattered'. He tried not to look at it or the blood that welled sluggishly from it, and rose slowly on one leg... the broken bones rubbed together, and he collapsed again.
Later, after more self-inflicted pain then Ark had ever known (which admittedly wasn't much) the bone was back in the flesh. He hobbled on one leg, leaning to one side to suspend the broken foot in the air, and took in the entrance.
Sickly, lichen green and covered in alien sigils, the doors themselves were daunting. The large stairs were another challenge altogether. They were slick with slime, and enormous. It was as though the entire thing had been created with something much larger than man in mind. Ark shuddered at the thought.
He hopped over to the nearest stair, which came from the floor to his stomach. He closed his eyes a moment, getting ready for the inevitable pain from his leg, pressed both hands against the first stair, and pushed down, bringing his good leg around to help him upwards. The foot found a shallow hold on the stone, and he scrambled upwards. Just as he began to regain his balance, his good foot slipped and he fell down onto the cool stone. His leg screamed out as he looked up, somewhat blankly, at the sky, which was being darkened by thunderclouds. 'One down,' he thought, clumsily getting up and leaning against the next stair, his eyes tearing up. 'Seventeen... nineteen to go.'
He hopped through the hall, shivering. The rain, which had caught him on the last stair, had been ice cold. The wetness had dried soon enough, since 'shifting' only allowed the flesh, and not clothing to be reproduced, but the water had followed him. The floor was slanted at an angle that allowed the water to flow from the entrance down the wide corridor. Every dozen feet there was a drain that added to the flow, which had brought along with it a chilling breeze.
Ark's nails found nicks and holds in the bricks whenever he needed to steady himself. He hadn't fallen yet, and the thought of splashing facedown into that ice-fire was enough to make his skin crawl.
Eventually he made it to the 'heart' of the Tower, or at the very least a central location. The much-hated water flowed off into the air, for both the ceiling and bottom of the place were deep enough to be shrouded in darkness.
Exploring the stone walkways that curled towards the invisible ceiling, Ark made a somewhat peculiar discovery: metal rods. Straight, as tall as he was and balled at one end, there were a half-dozen scattered around the walkways, with no discernable pattern to their location. Ark leaned over and picked one up, and became infinitely more mobile.
As he walked through the middle of the room, onto a rounded dais like platform, the stone beneath him began to quake. For a sick instant the floor seemed to quiver, and then it simply collapsed. Ark had only instants to contemplate the advantage of trying to move through space\time again, when his broken leg caught on a part of the walkway that was stable. He didn't feel any pain, his vision just blacked out.
Deep within the Tower, an insubstantial thing that existed in many moments at once began to come into focus...
When he awoke, his leg was healed. So he had died... again. He sat up, ankle deep in water, and looked heavenward. There was nothing but darkness. The only sound was of water, reduced from fat droplets to more a mist, making contact with the otherwise still surface.
The room, totally neglecting the ceiling or lack thereof, was enormous. Ark had fallen into a corner, and the opposite walls of the square room were shrouded in mist, more of a vague impression of substance than anything. There was no indication of method of entry or exit, just plain wall interrupted at certain point by small flickering balls of fire, the only source of light. Something nagged at the back of Ark's mind.
There was little to do but walk, though Ark doubted circling the room would make that much difference. There was a purpose to him being here, he had felt it the moment the huge structure had come thundering out of time with all the grace of a boulder being pushed off a hill, and then the recurring dreams in which a flame radiated from the heart of a Tower made of etheral black mists... He just had his doubts that it was to be here in this room, trying to ignore the fact that he could no longer feel his feet for the chilled water.
-6 Hours Later-
Ark kicked frantically to stay afloat. Yes, all the walls had been exactly the same, and no, there had not been purpose in him walking to each of them. He had found his 'walking stick' a short distance from his landing, and that had been a good thing, because it had taken a very long time to walk to each of the walls, which turned out to be about double the distance he had guaged them at. He had had to paddle at the end of the last one, the ever falling water having gotten so deep that he couldn't stand and keep his head above water.
So he was trapped, no big deal. Ark thought to himself. It wasn't like he could die in the first place... He would stay here another hour, to see if perhaps the room had a hidden trigger of some sort, or an entrance in the wall that would shortly be water level. He was completely in control, he had nothing to worry about, he could ignore the cold, he was okay, okay? Okay! (At this point he was hypothermic)
He was swimming in little circles, humming to himself, when it happened. At first he didn't notice the water around him growing darker, all his attentions were on the wall. He pressed up against it. So warm... what he did notice was when a huge wave smashed into him, the bone chilling cold covering his face, and forcing his underwater. Restored to temporary competence by the offending water, he fought his way back to the surface and took in a sight that he would remember for some time. The middle of the room seemed to bulge up, sending volumes of water thundering down on him. He ducked beneath the water and pivoted against the wall, trying somewhat successfully to escape the seemingly impossible forces. It was after he was smacked into the wall and left drifting, clinging a small irregularity in an otherwise smooth wall, that he realized the water level was dropping.
His head quickly broke the surface, though he hadn't moved at all. The water below him was black, the floor nowhere in sight. When he looked up he saw why. The 'floor' now jutted up from the surface of the water at an inconceivable angle. At first he couldn't understand it, it was simply to BIG. Then terror seized him. It wasn't the fact that the water was draining to who knew where, nor that he was about to get slammed on the head by what had at one time been the floor he walked on. It was just that things couldn't exist on that scale, it was too impossible, too unthinkable. Later, he would find that a funny thing for someone with his experiences to say.
He might have disappeared at that moment, to a nice warm tavern, or the airspace immediately above it at any rate. Anywhere sane. But he was dragged underwater as a huge bubble of air broke the surface, and he didn't have time to think.
When he came to he was already walking towards It. His body was battered, but not broken. His legs shook, but still trod the smooth stone. He had been awake for some time, but he simply hadn't been aware that he was seeing anything. The vision his eyes took in, a huge pulsating mound of flesh, connected to hundreds of red vines that jutted out of the rock from every possible angle, was simply there, and it meant nothing.
At the moment he was thinking about that one tavern in Porre with the pretty waitress in it. He saw her smiling at him, frowning slightly when that look of affection turned to one of disgust the moment she thought he wasn't watching. It was okay though. He would, no he had stopped drinking already, hadn't he? No more of the clear syrup that burned as it oozed down his throat and churned in his stomach... No he was different noweeeeeeee...
When he reached the the nameless organ he stopped, and swayed on his feet, his mouth twisted in a silly grin, his body occasionaly twitching spasmically. Though his eyes were opened, they turned in random, meaningless patterns characteristic of dreamers. Silently, like a leaves falling from some horrid tree, the tentacle... vine things connecting the thing to the walls detached and floated down lazily. Moments later, Ark was covered.
It felt another's warmth again, so small yet so welcome. It wrapped It's extensions around the warmth and gently brought it foreward.
Ark was thinking about how certain beds could be very warm, and how loony that guy Gasper was, when the huge, slopping thing opened with a hiss, warm steam escaping from it's maw. He grinned slightly; those beds were soft.
'At last!' It cried out. Another thing... son of man, but still warm... still framed in ever so malleable flesh, as they all were. It brought the man closer, into itself. The clumsy thing stumbled and fell into it, striking the tender innards and bringing forth a frothy black blood. The thing squealed and closed it's mouth, it's entire body constricting. The man was mumbling to himself now, and almost lazily kicked out, tearing through It's stomachs and flesh. The thing screamed out mentally, as it's brain began to loose life. It worked quickly, in a series of movements and internal flexs practiced millions of times in it's mind.
Thousands of vein like tubes tore into the man's flesh. It would have sneered had it a face... now it was time for the son of man, and Lavos, to pay.
Ark was fumbling towards conciousness. The warm bed was now warm and soaking wet. He tried to tear the covers off, but couldn't...
The tiny tubes pulsated with life, and a fine spray of black ichor jetting out from around the thousands of incisions. The Thing rumbled in delight. It could already feel Itself begin to move...
He rested as only beds could. Soft and slightly damp sheets curled around him in absolute contentment. The Thing that rested on him was coming around. The bed was so happy. He tightened his sheets around the faceless, oily thing. But the things just ripped through the sheets and got out. The bed was puzzled, and then angry. It wasn't nesccary for the Thing to ripe it's fine, warm sheets! The bed would have laid there in mute indignition for a long while, had the Thing not left the room, it's formless body already taking a more distinct shape...
It reveled in it's accomplishment. To be free at last of that broken and blind body! Though the flesh of it's new form was ripped and bleeding, that could, would, be corrected in time. It stepped out of the mound of flesh, free at last of the maddening caccoon. It's old body was already breaking apart like well cooked meat. The man didn't have enough focus to hold the form together.
It stretched out the ectoplasmic mass that was all that remained of the man's original form. To be alive again, to walk amongst the freaks unnoticed, undetected. It quivered in delight. For thousands of years It had felt and seen many things, but the most distinct was the memory of walking amongst the children of Lavos, feeling their sorry forms slip by like oil as they walked closer and closer to their own deaths. The memory was faint and muddled with a haze, but there. Extatic, the thing was about to set about making a new body when the smoldering pile of flesh that had once been it exploded. Tendrils of gore rained down, turned the ankle deep water black and oily.
The moment the Thing left Ark returned to his senses... for what they were worth. He could see nothing and felt a thousand things, from the cold water that went through flesh and fueled his body(?) to the surface of the walls around him to the warmth that stood next to him. Instinctively he tried to open his eyes; he had none. Tried to move, flex a muscle; muscles turned over sloppingly, but the wrong ones.
It was like having a mind waking up before the body, the mind worrying about each breath and beat of their heart, all the while trying to reach up and tear away the blackness that covered it's eyes. After going into a spasmic rage, which only resulted in a terrible cold feeling from ruptured organs, Ark finally gathered enough of his senses to 'shift'. As he left the body it exploded, no longer having anything to bind it together.
He reached out into that terrible nothingness, moving with an instinctive grace he had lacked before. Forget Towers and living beds, Ark was going back to Porre, where he didn't have to worry about being drowned in a giant drain and the beds moved if you wanted them to. Whatever power had summoned him obviously didn't like him much. He sped down the centuries, back to when Guardia was still a small province, El Nido Archipelago was still dotted with dozens of tribes, and eldritch powers from large floating death traps did not try to summon him to his doom.
The Thing was fascinated. It felt the man leave after the body had exploded, and followed his trek through time using the power nestled deep within it's heart. Was this what happened to humans after they died? Did they rush back to their creator, or to the explosive choas that was the beginning of time? Almost casually, It reached out with the same power it had used to watch the seemingly impossible escape, and grabbed the rapidly retreating spirit. It had slew many men, but had lacked the control it possessed now, after years of introspection. Such an act was as simple as twitching a muscle.
Ark was standing in a large room, on a pile of rotting flesh, probably what had been his own. Before him was something of a nightmare, a shapeless being that seemed to never cease in movement. Pain cut through him as dozens of lacerations opened up and down his 'fresh' body. He moaned and doubled over, but kept on his feet. Blood trickled down his legs and mingled with the chaotic gore. Everything was so very cold. He looked up at the Phantom, and observed it's soundless approach.
Ahh, now what? Should it kill the human again, and seal his mind within itself? Or perhaps simply let him loose again to fulfill whatever destiny awaited the dead, and make use of it's oddly formed flesh? No... It's memories about human behavior were still largely incomplete, perhaps this one could act as a guide... a pawn...
It stretched out and touched the man, immobilizing him. Then It moved itself onto him, until he was submerged and choking on it's flesh.
A moment, two, and the man's wounds began to close. A minute and his body was as good as it had first appeared bubbling out of nothing. Peculiar ability, must be characteristic of the dead reintroduced into the timestream. It retracted and waited for the man to collapse, then it set about making it's new form. There was something from another hazed memory, a broken part of itself that made creation slow and difficult but... there!
Ark vomited as soon as the thing came away from his mouth. He almost collapsed in doing so, so weak he was. His stomach churned and wound so tight he worried it might rip if he rose too quickly... but gently the tightness loosened, and he stood. The Phantom thing was churning, seeming to be trying to consume itself. Ark took several steps back, this thing might have healed him, but perhaps to only enjoy the sport of killing him better. It had reached out somehow and yanked him back from outside time and space, so it's powers were already beyond his. Running again would probably do no good... he clinched his fists and uttered a silent prayer to a god he didn't believe in that this Thing was benevolent.
The form outlines... muscle structure... bipedal sync rhythms... It had plumbed all the knowledge it had out of it's subconscious and undermind. Now to test it.
The Thing began to take on a more distinct shape, humanoid. Ark remained where he was... there was little he could hope to accomplish by running away again. Two legs, two arms, thinning out now... It turned, a rudimentary face coated in quicksilver staring at him with blank eyes. It walked towards him, and with each step turned more and more human-like. It stopped within arms reach, and Ark trembled.
The thing's energy was felt before seen, cold and dark. As Ark looked unsteadily into it's mirror eyes, he felt a firm conviction that he had never encountered anything like it before. The memories of who he was and what he had been; before being drawn into the Princess of Zeal's dream might well have welled up from their dark hiding place, just long enough to verify that no, they didn't know what the Thing was. He tensed, not knowing what to expect or how to counter act it. The patterns that danced on the Thing's surface slowed, and then stopped. Ark began to unconsciously gather energy around his fist... and a human burst out of the statue-esque creature! He had to stop his fist halfway through a reflexive punch, and observe the energy which he hadn't been aware of, scatter to places unknown.
The human reached out to steady itself against Ark. Bald and hunched over, the sex of it was impossible to determine. The thing seemed to gather itself, putting it's energies, now warm, but still dark, in order. It backed up and Ark saw it was in fact female. He stared for a moment, feeling stupid as the color in his cheeks rose. The woman (girl?) fell to her knees and planted her hands (that lacked nails, Ark noticed) on the submerged stone. A moment passed, the energy began to emancipate on itself... and a shock of black hair was suddenly on her head. It had not bubbled into existence, or grown very quickly, it simply was one moment. Nails had formed too.
The Thing (no, girl... a girl) gathered itself again, and then stood. Ark snapped his head around so quickly it was a miracle his neck didn't snap. Angel, demon, or what-have-you, the nudity disturbed him. He waited until the energy went through another transformation, and then looked... into misty blue eyes, tinged in red.
She was dressed like a... clown? No, Jester. Wearing a blood red costume far to intricate to take in all at once. Her face was painted white, with two tears on one side of the face, beneath the right eye, and a painted scar on the other. She looked at him for a moment, and then blushed.
To Be Continued...