Mortal Coils

"What makes you, who has an immortal soul, think you have it rough? There is an 'after' in store for you."



He was mortal.

He was mortal in any sense of the word, perhaps more so than most life-forms might care to admit. He could die and if he did, there would be nothing left of him. He sat atop Ty'Rekh's back and wondered what it was to have an eternal soul, an eternal presence.
He was mortal, for want of an eternity.

Snort. Snort.

Ty'Rekh chuffed at him, yanking her rider out of his thoughts as they neared the sea. The smell wasn't hard to miss and Renne wasn't about to risk tasting of that foul reek. He turned his pony away from the sea, leading her inward to the city. Away from the docks, away from....there.
It had been years ago by now. Years ago, a night changed him forever. Ty'Rekh snorted again as if she, in her pony way, knew something was off. She was familiar with that sense of 'off' and didn't like it.
Let them dissolve. Let them fade away.

He shuddered as the thought raced by his mind.

Eternal souls don't die.

They wanted to get away from the stench -- the stench of the sea and the stench of the past. It had weighed them both down for far too long. And yet, a chain was of Renne's own making. He had made a vow and it was his undoing.
Crack.

Beep-beep-beep.

Somewhere, distant thunder roared. Renne flinched. His wrist-dial went off. He answered it with a chirp and he listened to the muted, booming voice of his Commander, made a little tinny and hollow by the tiny device's size. It was another mission. It was a simple mission, really: Take out another goon found somewhere in this quadrant. As the communication came to its end, Renne found himself asking a question he had not voiced before. Dismounting Ty'Rekh, Renne listened intently to the possible reply. What came was a mild shock.

"You do not have an eternal soul?"

The answer was, no. He did not. He was mortal in ways that would frighten most. If he died, that was it. There was nothing 'after'. The Commander's voice left him as he made arrangements for Ty'Rekh and moved to his next mission.

"Why have an eternal soul over your eternal life?"

He was truly mortal and yet he was a kind of god. It made no sense, but neither did his presence in Rhy'Din. He had never made sense to those around him.

Perhaps the mission and the stench of the ocean -- Crack -- Crack-Crack -- and ridding his head of thunder might divert his mind, keep him away from facing the fact that yes, he was mortal.

Mortal Coils
The Art of Pain

I shall place a warning here. From here on out, Mortal Coils will contain descriptions of extreme violence. This is NOT an advocation of such acts. This is a warning that things are going to get bloody, so if you are squeamish, turn back now.


"Do not regret what you have done."
--Miyamoto Musashi; The Book of Five Rings




Malgore crept to the first house. His eyes shone in predatory excitement as he neared his target. The adult female here had just brought forth another, one who was so very, very young.
Wicked talons took hold of the house's door. In the blink of an eye, the structure came ripping off of its greater frame; the noise understandably waking the household. The beast faced his victims, now in a frightened scurry to get away. The adult male armed himself with a fishing implement knowing it was not enough but driven enough to try. Driven. Brave. Stupid. Protective. Foolish. Gutsy.
A dead man.

It took Malgore a mere second to nearly slither into the house and swat the fishing implement away. It took him another half-second to slice the fisherman's arm through from shoulder to wrist and this demonic being salivated in delight. Another slashing rip and the fisherman was dead before his gored body hit the floor he stood on. Mere feet away, a mother and two children screamed, wailing for their lives.
Their neighbours either never heard them or chose to disregard the cries of distress.
Malgore savoured consuming his first victim, garishly letting half the blood he didn't drink run down his front like a grisly paint. It was pure bliss, the melodious screams of the female and her young. The thrill of crunching bone in his mouth and the sight of carnage at his feet. The dark symphony was building in his ears but what was perhaps most disturbing was Malgore's very silence through the ordeal. He never growled, spoke or made vocal noises when he killed the man. Never made a sound beyond the drink of blood, the crunch of bone and the tearing of raw meat as he ate.

The mother dared to speak, sending a chill in the air.

"Why are you doing this?"

It was here that Malgore finally gave voice.

"I enjoy it."



He hurried. The sound of screaming was an alarm bell in his mind and in his ears. Even beneath the blue-black armour he wore, Renne heard it and trembled. Crawling like the animal he had once been, he let his most primeval of instincts come to the surface. It was one predator after another before it got to its prey and he was in the red. When Renne came close enough to hear the crunching of bones, his expression hardened.
There would be no mercy for this one. His assignment was to detain if possible, kill if necessary.

It had become necessary.


"I enjoy it."

The words from this beast chilled her to the bone. She could not fight, knew nothing of the warrior arts and her children were both too young to be of any strength. She trembled, clinging to her children. Her baby son and three-year-old daughter wept, holding to their mother for all they were worth. For them, holding onto Mother or Papa made the world right again.
Why wasn't it working this time? The elder child drew her own conclusion: This bad thing was too strong for Mummy to make it better. She whispered to her mother, begging to know what to do. How could she be the big girl and help Mummy make it all better?

Her mother didn't speak as she kept her eyes on the monster feasting on what was her husband. She twisted her free arm around to pull the dark cloak from the box behind her. Passing the baby to her daughter, she swiftly wrapped the child in the cloth. At first, little Susprea didn't understand but it all became clear in one harsh, hoarse whisper.

"Run, Susprea. Run."

Mortal Coils
More than Meets the Eye

"And though we are worlds apart, like us, there is more to them than meets the eye."
--Optimus Prime; Transformers




It was time.

His prey was near.

The one called Steel Ranger was left alone to his animal instincts and his prize. The beast was a savage thing, he knew. He had heard it nearly exterminate an entire family, the family's species notwithstanding. A family was a family, at least in an ideal mind. He listened to it scavenge off of those already dead and pick their bones clean. It was calm for now but it would soon desire more. More blood. More wailing. More fear and more pain.
It was time to put the world out of its misery.


Malgore savoured the tender, fearful flesh of these he had come for. It was delightful, exhilarating to hear the cries, feel the moans of pain as his teeth sank into living flesh. The males were tough, savoury with their stronger muscles and larger organs. They were delectable in their defiant battle cries that gradually turned into moans and screams of agony. The females offered a different kind of treasure -- soft, tender and perfumed with the pheromones only females could bear. They were weaker but sweeter, softer. They sang with their terror and melodied screams. When the two came together, it was a symphony of howls, a concerto of delicious pain, the likes of which he fed off of until a thought occurred to him.

The young.

How did the young savour against his palate?

It was a question he would never know the answer to.

Out of seeming nowhere, an abomination came. Silent as a shadow, it gave no warning or fanfare to its arrival. It landed on Malgore's back with murderous intent. Malgore roared at the thing; tail lashing as he fought to dislodge his passenger. He had been enjoying the terror and pain, as he was to do but now, his feast had been destroyed, ruined by this thing that now clawed into him with no mercy.
Then, for no reason he could determine, the abomination released him. Malgore was no longer in the mood to feast. He was now intent on obliterating the thing that had interrupted him.

Renne rolled off of his target's back, slashing an ankle on the way down. Without a word, he began to goad his prey, baiting him to follow. He didn't know much more about Malgore than his name and the putrescence of evil the beast exuded. And his wish to bring that abomination into nonexistence. He crawled, then stood on his two feet. He was animal. He was life-form.

He was Bluesteel, and as Bluesteel, he faced the one called Malgore.

Mortal Coils
Blood, Energon and Eternity

"Mortality. It is the humbling of all things."





The battle had begun.

It was a fast thing, yet it took forever. The sun rose and set more than once. A date flashed by Renne's mind and he noted it in the midst of evading his opponent's talons. Scratches had accumulated in a matter of minutes into the war. Scratches he cared nothing about -- he had given and received the same. Blood was of no consequence.
There were no scribes to record this war. He was alone here, more alone than in the great Realm Wars of the past. In those wars, scribes and survivors -- himself included -- had lived to tell the story of those wars. Here, it was either himself or Malgore alone that would tell the tale of this war.

There were no rounds to determine who had the upper hand. The balance shifted as often as one might breathe in a day. From the ground to the air, the combatants took one another up then down, then up and down again. Blood of two colours began to rain upon the ground, slowly soaking into the fertile, waiting earth.
He felt Malgore's putrid blood stream from several inflicted wounds. They were painful but essentially, minor. All he had done was madden the beast into a greater frenzy. He heard Malgore charge only seconds before he could react and to his ears, when the abomination struck him, it felt like thunder. Tons of weight sent his comparative few pounds sailing through the wind. When he landed, Renne only gave it passing thought that he'd landed in the shallow tide pools of the sea somewhere east of the battleground.

Something inside cracked. Something else gave out.

It took him far longer than he'd have liked, but eventually, Renne made it to his feet. Malgore already stood over him, looming like some shadow that couldn't be escaped. The beast grinned a sadistic grin as it let its blood rain down on its opponent like some show of superiority.

Bluesteel...

The word/name called seductively, but for now he resisted. He had a job to do and he had to survive doing it.

Once more, two bodies, one great and one small, clashed. The most primal methods were once again employed. Talons. Teeth. A tail sting. Venom. Renne couldn't Change any further. Malgore had no Change blessing, but he had size. He had power.
Wings fanned the scent of war across the winds as Malgore took to the skies, baiting Renne to follow him. He was rewarded when the Steel Ranger's nine wings came out. They came out fast, too fast to be bloodless and a spray of thin blue went flying into the sand and sea below.

He felt an impact. Somewhere, his mind distantly registered the shattering of a leg and the crack of yet another section of his latticed rib-mesh. Mesh. That's practically what it was, thin and mesh-like to support flexibility and lung capacity. Such a structure was no good against a brute like Malgore, but Renne pushed on. He could Transcend, but hesitated.
The Second Law. Never escalate a battle...
He obeyed the Laws at all times but only in battle did the Second Law truly apply. He held to it, clung to it as he raised his temperature. He could do that without escalation. Malgore's massive jaws opened, then snapped shut around him. It was a surreal thing to be caught in another predator's mouth, ready to be the prey he had so long denied that he was. Renne had just become the prey, but he'd not go down easily.

Malgore clamped his teeth shut, his mouth easily encompassing the diminutive target he had set his eyes on. The dragon/not-dragon reveled in the blood running from his prey and onto his tongue, ignoring the warnings such blood carried with it. It was delightful, intoxicating. It tasted of experience, of someplace and some-time too far away and too alien to be traced again. It tasted of aloneness, of fear, betrayal, renewal, strength and endurance.
It was blissful agony when Malgore's mouth was burned from the inside out.

The waves of alien heat scorched his tongue and traveled down his throat. It seared everything it touched but Malgore was loathe to let his prize go. Fire consumed him on the inside, choking him out yet there were no flames. There was no smoke. There was only the unbearable heat and the intoxicating taste of his prey.

Bluesteel...