The Gallow's Howl [closed]

[Vanilla Poltergeist Snake]

The twilight veil of oncoming night was rent by a piercing howl. Panicked movement tore through the black, gnarled limbs of the overgrown forest; the twisting branches reaching drunkenly in the shadows, seeking to bar his path.

It felt like he'd been running for hours, his breathing shallow and erratic, a vicious burn crawling through sinew and muscle like a deadly toxin.
Again, the haunting sound of that dreadful howl pierced the darkening sky, the sound of foliage being obliterated beneath heavy tread added to the roiling cacophony that seemed to be drawing closer with every forced step.

Don't look back, he thought, forcing his weary legs to continue their furious motion. Faster, I've got to move faster!
His mind had no time for rational thought, only the instinctive urge to simply flee from what would surely be a gruesome end. Yet, even in the throes of terror, the faint light of hope shone, like a burgeoning flame, hungry and eager to grow. A white-hot rush of adrenaline surged through him, cascading through his body like a rejuvenating elixir as it fueled his flight. In the distance, the light of hope began to take on a tangible shape, causing another rush of excitement to pulse through his veins - the edge of the forest was growing near.

At long last the terrified man erupted from the treeline, his sweat-streaked flesh cool now in the evening breeze. He sucked in each breath as deeply as his exhausted body would allow, every last molecule of oxygen was a precious commodity to his starved body. The night sky had been painted in deep shades, obscured randomly by the bloated, storm gray clouds that had begun to drift inland. He had little chance to admire the scenery however, as the sound of his deadly pursuers began to fill his ears once more.

It was at that moment that he knew there was no escape. Dawn would never break before his eyes again.

The man crossed the fifteen feet between the treeline and the edge of the bluff with mixed amounts of dread and sorrow. Though the cloak of night cast it's gloomy shroud over Terrenus, he had little difficulty imagining what fate awaited at the bottom of that dark abyss. The adrenaline that had once given him wings now guttered out like his remaining hope, and something deep inside of him broke.

This is the end.

Death had come.

During his crazed flight, the man had thought he understood the true meaning of fear, but as the treeline exploded with motion, he understood that he'd made a critical error. The werewolf, if it could even be called that, surged forward with impossible speed and ferocity. It's massive maw was held agape, revealing jagged rows of razor-sharp fangs that closely resembled crudely wrought iron. The hulking freak hurled itself into the air with an earth shattering roar, it's lethal intent proudly emblazoned across it's horrific visage, eyes wild with berserk fury.

During the trials and tribulations of life, the man had thought he understood the true meaning of pain, but as the beast's claws rent his flesh, he understood that he'd made a critical error. The werewolf landed almost on top of it's prey, it's initial strike saw the man's midsection carved open with grisly efficiency, showering the earth beneath him with a gout of blood.

He attempted to scream, but the sudden rush of blood that ejected from his mouth drowned out the sound - his unbelievable agony reflected only in his wide eyes.

The blood-soaked behemoth snatched the man up with it's opposite claw, crushing his arm into ruined fragments with frightening ease. The beast lifted him further into the air, the massive silhouette of the Mausoleum standing as a silent witness to the carnage off in the distance. The roaring monster pivoted and hurled the man at the ground like a child might throw a ball, his ruined body colliding against the earth with a sickening crunch. Gore had splattered across the now dripping maw of the devil-wolf, it's jet black fur glistening with the sticky wetness of the man's lifeblood. Again it lunged, taking hold of the man's left leg, it's titanic jaws pulverizing the soft flesh in between, snapping bones like dried twigs.

A howl of agony pierced the night, drowning out the natural sounds of the earth and the forest, and replacing them with the sounds of excruciating torture. Again and again the beast ravaged the helpless man, gleaning some perverse, primal pleasure from tearing bloodied strips of flesh and tissue away from his body. Shock had left him overcome, his thoughts nothing more than an incoherent whirl of pain, explosive and unmerciful.

Only the gods know what satisfied that great, dark beast. It's berserk rage and gluttony for blood satisfied with the mangled, moaning husk of what was once a man. The creature turned it's snout skyward as if sensing some far off disturbance, it's posture strangely alert for such a savage freak.

Pain... so much... pain

The beast tore off into the night, carving another path of destruction through the forest as it went to seek additional prey. The remainder of it's meal still writhing on the ground, the pool of crimson spreading beneath the mangled torso reflected moonlight, lending an oily sheen to the blood. His limbs were strewn casually about, artful splatters of gore revealing the paths they'd flown, his flesh torn and rent to sticky red ribbons.

There he lay beneath the night sky, twitching fitfully as his ruined body pumped out the last of it's life-fluid, begging for the sweet release of death to claim him.

[Faustus]

When next our poor, mangled heap of a man opens his eyes, it is to a clean, well-lit room. Though the very definition of Spartan, furnishings and decorations both sparse and utilitarian, the room was flush with an undeniable certainty of comfort and well-being, a sort of casual happiness that required no conscious direction and that did not obtrude.

Everything was made of wood. The floor of two-by-fours, the painted heads of the floorboards arranged in a concentric staggering pattern so that the very center of the room exploded in a blossom of color. The walls of ebony wood, sanded smooth but otherwise untouched and unmodified. The ceiling of red cherry oak, polished and brought to a high sheen, better able to carry natural light all around the room.

Everything was made of wood; the floors, the walls, the ceilings, the tables, the frame upon which the sofa cushions rested

"You're on the verge of death."

It was upon hearing that voice, and understanding its harrowing message, that the man came to realize all of his faculties were in order. That he could see out of his eyes plain as day, had all of his limbs, and that his torso was whole and even that he could stand. Whipping his eyes around revealed nothing. There was no one else in the room that he could see, and there wasn't much to hide behind.

From one corner an abstracted shadow suddenly took form. What looked like, moments before, no more than a splotch of darkness twisted until it was roughly in the shape of a man; still two-dimensional it remained flat and projected at odd angles against the wall, but it moved of its own accord.

"But you're probably wondering where we are, with the violence of your last memories contrasted against all of this, this place you suddenly find yourself in. We're in your mind. Or, well, part of it. Another part is a shared, common space. Another part is my mind. We're not really talking right now, it'd take too long to tell you what I have to tell you and it'd be for naught. Think of it more like trading impressions and flashes of insight or understanding. It's really quite fascinating."

"I found you just outside of the hospital. The hospital I work at. The wretched beast didn't even leave enough of you to survive the transformation. You might have made it then. As it stands you have really only a few options."

As the voice spoke, distinctly male and so accompanying a distinctly male silhouette, the shadow began to take on a more solid form. The shoulders rounded and it reached out, filling out and gaining depth, while all the minutiae of detail assaulted his face; from the void came eye-sockets, a noise, the outline of a mouth and even teeth.

"I can leave you as is and you die, to find whatever comfort you might in death. I could take your essence out and put it in a jar, or anchor you to an artifact or relic, where you may cling to this world and live in it if not through it.

"Or . . ."

Though most of him remained black, the man was now whole. Black shirt, black pants, black shoes; hands and face so pale in contrast it seemed almost unnatural; golden eyes that burned with a fire of an intensity unrivaled by the sunlight streaming through the window and bouncing off the ceiling.

"I can bring you back. And more. I can make you better, stronger, faster, so this kind of thing can never happen to you again."

[Vanilla Poltergeist Snake]

Consciousness and awareness blossomed like a newly formed nebulae in his mind. It's ethereal tendrils uncoiled and stretched lazily throughout his brain, despensing an ever-growing sense of wakefulness and alertness into the still form of the man. Yet, even as the flourishing signs of life swept through him, a dinstinct sensation of alarm flashed brightly in his subconscious. It was as if the recently awakened presence of mind was fractured and incomplete.

Where am I? The disembodied thought echoed throughout his head, creating a distorted sound that hummed feebly within the cloudy confines of his mind. Who am I? The additional thought was born from the reverberation of it's predecessor, the vague suggestion of thought tumbling through his troubled psyche.

"You're on the verge of death."

The sudden arrival of another, more distinct sound, came as an intrusion to his fragile sense of self. Where his own thoughts had been soft, almost vapor-like in the expanse of his mind's eye, the new voice was pronounced and almost aggressive. The calm, yet unmistakeably urgent tone of the phantom voice sent another buzzing alarm through his body. As if released from captivity, a sudden rush of memories flooded his mind's eye, turning the once tranquil setting of velvety blackness into a roiling maelstrom of realization.

A flash of bared fangs caused him to jolt reflexively, an unfamiliar itch spreading uncomfortably through his seemingly immobile limbs. The man jerked once more, his eyes opening suddenly as the voice resounded through his head once more.

"But you're probably wondering where we are..."

Eyes rimmed with red focused slowly on their surroundings, darting this way and that in a hurried attempt to scout the area.
His mind throbbed with an echoing sense of emergency, memories of present danger flooding his subconscious as he struggled to come to grips with the relatively safe setting of reality.

"I found you just outside of the hospital. The hospital I work at."

Again, his vision blurred as he was assaulted by another wave of panic. A hospital? Was he injured? He struggled to sit up, but crumpled helplessly against the bedding beneath him as white-hot agony flared like an exploding star beneath his eyelids, stabbing outward from his core, and reaching it's painful fingers down into the very marrow of his bones. So much pain...

As the phantom voice began to solidfy within his mind, so did the reality of his situation. Though he could only recall the vicious beast as a monstrous blur, the instinctive part of his mind understood his life had been compromised. The uncomfortable itch presented itself again as his eyes moved around the room, slowly gaining a sense of understanding. His thoughts were drawn to the silhouette of the man in his head, his attention focusing completely as the pain from his outburst began to subside.

Suddenly, he found himself utterly transfixed by those glowing, golden eyes. Part of him suspected that they contained unimagineable power, but the very supposition itself seemed alien, the thought incomplete, as the voice once again filled him, pulsing through his very core.

"I can bring you back. And more. I can make you better, stronger, faster, so this kind of thing can never happen to you again."

Those words echoed through every fiber of his being, made concrete by the urges of instinct and will. The will to survive. His most base and primal of instincts roared in his ears like a massive tidal wave, the imprint of those blazing golden orbs burned into his mind for eternity. His tongue darted across his dried, cracked lips, his breath a rasping whisper as it leapt between his teeth. He sought to reply, to give voice to the sudden wellspring of desire that erupted inside of him like an overflowing geyser.

"Yes." He croaked, his throat a ruin after untold amounts of screaming.

Yes! His mind screamed, eager to be acknowledged by the voice that had filled his awareness only moments ago.

A flash of fangs, and blazing gold.

Make me stronger. Grant me power. Deliver me from death!

[Faustus]

With the way that circumstances, and consequent resolutions, were laid out before the man, accord was a foregone conclusion. It was precisely why everything looked the way it did. The cabin, inoffensive and unassuming; what little could be viewed through the windows serene and idyllic. If the man had woken up in his actual state, as little more than a torso with mangled remnants of limbs and guts pouring out over the side of him, the sell would have been an upwards climb.

When the man with the golden eyes smiled, it all went away. Briefly mind you, for the most fleeting moment that the brain was capable of appreciating, but the sudden, incoherent lapse in the peace of things was unmistakable. It came on the heels of the other man's acquiescence. The one with the golden eyes took a single step forward and held himself there.

"There's more. It isn't all good news." A blanket of morose expression covered his face. Had he even really smiled just a few moments ago? Maybe it was a trick of the mind. Yes of course; it had to be.

"I'm just a simple doctor. God saw fit to bless me with the hands of miracle worker, but the financial means of a pauper. I am gifted, this is true, but every means to the ends of the dream that I have offered you will come through the hospital. All of the machinery, even my time, will have to be approved for work on the 'project'.

"Do you understand? It's a business expense. They won't save you out of the goodness of their heart. A corporation has no heart, just a wallet, and it doesn't help matters that the procedure I am proposing is highly experimental. It might all be for naught.

"But as it stands, I need to be able to justify the expense. Do you understand?"

This was an attempt to make it seem as of the man had a choice; as if the road he would soon tread upon was one chosen completely of his own volition. He wanted the man to come to the conclusion of being the hospital's mercenary, for lack of a better term, himself.

[Vanilla Poltergeist Snake]

The man closed his eyes and drew in a ragged breath. He was dimly aware of the room dissolving around him as the magic that sustained it began to shift. An icy chill had climbed along his spine, infecting his ruined body with the grim presence of death. His grasp of reality wavered and the chasm of his mind seemed to expand beneath the stray arcane energy that splashed through him, pouring off of the mysterious orator in heavy waves. His eyes opened, rimmed with an angry red. The vision of the Man with Golden Eyes swam before him, his silhouette gradually becoming real, pulling the frayed threads of reality into it's core. Darkness stretched out in all directions, broken only by the solid form floating in front of him.

"Do you understand? It's a business expense. They won't save you out of the goodness of their heart."

Again, his words carried with them a haunting echo, holding the man spellbound. The voice of instinct rang out within the confines of his skull, relentlessly assaulting him with warnings of his approaching demise.

"But as it stands, I need to be able to justify the expense. Do you understand?"

Do you understand? Do you understand?

He blinked as the sound expanded like ripples in an otherwise still pond, the faint itch of his phantom limbs made his body feel hollow, a broken man helplessly adrift within some terrible nightmare. His focus settled on the hovering form before him, his lungs hungrily drawing in another breath.

"I understand," he thought.

A flash of fangs, an unnatural howl.

He understood that in exchange for life, he'd be bound to servitude. Obedience in exchange for unthinkable power.

The man licked his cracked lips.

"Make me whole."

His eyes closed, consciousness preparing to depart.

"Make me whole."

Darkness took him into it's embrace, offering only silence as it sent him onward into the void.

[Faustus]

The man, exhausted physically and mentally from such trials of abject horror as had been visited on him at the hands of a most sinister beast, collapsed into himself; the cabin shook, crackled, was overtaken by squiggly lines and white snow, then half of it faded away. The half that the man had contributed it by just being conscious.

Faustus in his half of the edifice, the very tips of his toes coming to rest just shy of the rubicon, behind which stood the man himself and all the idyllic wonders fabricated of his own mindscape, and before which was the vast, empty abyss, black with terror, a window into the unconscious realm of the other man.

"Hah." Faustus scoffed, suppressed a chortle. "Make him whole."

He turned sharply on his heels, crossed his arms behind his back so as to grasp in each hand the wrist of the hand opposite and square his shoulders with regal carriage, and walked out the door, fading out of sight with every step he took. Before the final silhouette glimpsed out of sight, his last words echoed in the cabin.

"Ludicrous."

~~~~~~~~~~

Over a period of the next two weeks, the man's nude body was submerged in a vat of crystallized mana, first melted and then cooled into a gelatin like colloid about as viscous as molasses. As the mana provided energy directly to the man's system, he did not need to breathe or eat over that 14 day period. On the 15^th day the mana was flash-compressed into a tight core of energy in the very center of his being.

As a consequence, the man's muscle fibers are permanently strengthened and his flesh made much more resilient. The large and intricate network comprising his twitch-fibers were also completely revamped, allowing for enhanced reaction time, agility, fine motor control and photo-reflexes. His nervous system was re-mapped, arranged in a more efficient and intricate network. To be exact in an arrangement identical to a circle originally proposed by Herbie the Sage, a powerful Terran mystic lost to the world over half a century ago, that would allow the man a seemingly inherent control over magical energies.

Two unintended side-effects, as later noted during the man's recuperation, is that his skeleton is now capable of detecting miniscule vibrations when in direct contact with a surface on which there is movement, and that his skin generated a subtle field of sound waves, effectively below the hearing range of nearly any living creature, allowing the man to feel his surroundings even in total darkness. As an almost hastily thought of addition, the man's neural synapses were re-wired with a material more conductive to both the electric and chemical processes natural to the human brain, increasing his focus, alertness, memory, and concentration.

Because his brain must now adjust to relying primarily on his sense of sound, rather than the human standard of the sense of sight, the man will lose his appreciation of finer details. He will still be able to make objects out clearly enough, but it will be harder to distinguish friend or foe as faces will tend to blur together, and the appreciation of art is lost completely on him.

The fluid of the man's eyes are completely drained and replaced with the fluid extracted from the occipital lobes of an Ethereal Jaunter, leaving the man with the whites of his eyes permanently yellow, as if jaundiced, but a yellow that changes in hue and gradient as if upon a whim. This allows the man to see magic in the air, and to be able to identify what school it belongs to by metrics of sight that he alone can see, and he alone will have to establish.

The final move was to boost his hearing, allowing him the conveniences of an internal boom microphone or ground-penetrating sonar array at a whim.

When next the man woke up, it was in a hospital room. Painfuly clean, everything either white and sterilized or affected with sickly pastel colors meant to mollify the sick or dying man but which only served to agitate by the imposition of its affected calm.

In the corner farthest from the bed, opposite the door, against the window-pane sat Faustus, the man with the golden eyes. One leg crossed over the other, hands resting calmly on the arm rest, face turned to look out the window overlooking the craggy bluffs and forested acres.

Faustus wondered if the man would recognize that particular patch of land as the place where he almost lost his life.

[Vanilla Poltergeist Snake]

As the man entered the void, his fractured mind slipped into a coma-like state. The brief period of consciousness he'd experienced after the attack had left his psyche nearly as mangled as his body, and the tattered remnants of his soul floated aimlessly through the vast sea of darkness. Visions danced in his mind, fragments of his memory painted in muted tones across the dreamscape of his subconscious. His name was, or had been, Alfred Kreid. The finer details of his identity remained lost to him, but the film reel of his memory rolled onward, bringing the distant silhouettes of gnarled old trees into view. He was assaulted by a staccato of rushed images; black, skeletal limbs extended from the depths of the forest, eager to ensnare him. The road ahead lay shrouded in shadow, the terrain riddled with small obsticles in the form of undergrowth and partially unearthed stones. As ever, the sound of that demonic howl pierced his ears, his dreamvision suddenly filled with the sight of the massive beast, saliva dripping from it's distended jaws in thick, glistening ropes. The nauseating rush of images began to coalesce into a visceral crimson smear, and with a final splash, the stream of memories ceased, and he sank deeper into the void.

The mana gelatin closed around him, eerily cool as it filled the spaces between his limbs, flooding his nasal passages, and pentrating his body with it's unnatural sustenance. Alfred remained unconscious and completely numb, the magical essence coursing through his bloodstream providing an inherent form of anesthesia. With his vitals carefully monitored, and arcane lifesupport meticulously regulated, the operation was ready to begin.

Time carried him along in it's endless flow, and somewhere within the infinite reaches of the void, Alfred Kreid faded away.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reality dawned with all the glory and clarity of the rising sun. After countless hours of surgery and sleep, the man's eyelids parted suddenly, and twin, burnished gold orbs stared blankly at the ceiling. As if lit by some internal source, the dim hue of those eyes suddenly brightened, gaining a vibrant, healthy shade of yellow. He blinked. He saw. The blurred mass above him induced a sudden wave of nausea, and the man groaned, blinking several times in rapid succession to clear his vision. However, in spite of his best efforts, the man found that the brilliant rays of sunlight pouring in through the window seemed to hurt. He couldn't focus on the ceiling, and in an attempt to better understand his current conundrum, the man sat up.

His line of sight dropped down along the wall, hardly able to comprehend the blurred shape in the corner of the room. The man closed his eyes, drawing in a measured breath as he sought to hone his focus. The slight shift of his body caused the bedsprings to creak in mild complaint, sending a remarkably vivid net of color out in all directions. He gasped, scrambling gracelessly into a seated position. He noticed that every movement produced it's own signature, it's own sound. Even with his eyes held firmly closed, he found that he could see, and more than that, he discovered that he was able to distinguish invididual strands of glowing energy; luminescent tendrils groping blindly for purchase as they slithered fluidly throughout the atmosphere. The man's breath was held in wonder, the room coming to life within the scope of his brilliant and nearly sentient secondary senses.

He felt a strange internal vibration, as though his entire body was humming in tune to the movements of the arcane winds. His body seemed to have a heightened sense of overall clarity, instinctively aware of everything that surrounded him, as though their own unique energy signatures sought to make themselves known to the living manifestation of Magitech at it's finest. His secondary sight focused on the mass in the corner, the massive web of ultrabright color radiating from it's being filled him with an additional sense of wonder. The sheer power that rolled off of him struck his newly awakened senses as ancient. Limitless.

"You." He began softly, as if unsure of whether or not he still possessed the ability to speak. "The man with golden eyes."

A heavy sigh escaped him and he reclined against the pillows behind him, electing to keep his eyes closed. He spent several moments exploring the massive network of sight-through-sound that sprawled in front of him before his voice passed over his lips once more.

"What have I become? What am I supposed to do now?"

He looked down at the prosthetic limbs that had replaced his arms (the lower portion of his body still obscured by the sheets) and exhaled softly, attempting to come to grips with the swirling, intricate runic patterns that swirled upwards and over the glossy black, metallic compound that had replaced his flesh. Each of the runes glowed and thrummed with power, pulsing faintly as they acquired active, realtime readings of the magical forces within the room, constantly updating the feed in his secondary sight. His new fingers curled into a new fist and he lowered it back onto the matress, turning his attention back to Faustus.

[Faustus]

The room was utterly still. The man stirred in his bed, the sound of rustling blankets and creaking bedsprings snagging the attention of the man in black with golden eyes. Faustus looked upon Alfred with a sort of languid expression filling his eyes, ennui hanging off his face like saggy flesh, and apathy in general afflicting his frame. He seemed nothing like the urgent doctor that Alfred met in his dreams, and yet it was undeniable that this man and the other were indeed the same person.

"Yes. It's me. The man with the golden eyes."

Faustus searched Alfred's eyes, probed into the very depths of his being with a glance of calm and utter penetration, and then rooted around in his own shirt pocket. While Alfred's mind attempted to reconcile, in one fell swoop, all that had occurred and all that was currently occurring, Faustus busied himself by procuring a single cigarette, clutching it between dry lips, and lighting it with a flame of tongue that licked out from the tip of his thumb. The reconciliation could be instant, could take a few hours, or could snap Alfred's psyche and never come at all. He bided his time.

"My professional name is the Architect. For the sake of colloquial conversation, you can call me Archy. It's more . . . fun."

As he spoke, plumes of smoke vented from between his teeth. The smoke was nothing but a thin, white cloud; the cigarette itself was nothing. Oh there was paper, and there was something rolled tight in that paper, but it wasn't tobacco. It was a sham. A guise. A trick, like much about the man with the golden eyes. He took another innocuous pull from the cigarette, its glowing ember tip casting a grotesque shadow upon his face.

"Well first, I need you to calm down. You've been through a great deal of trauma. I know too little about you to accurately project what your reactions might be, and so am limited in terms of safeguards I was able to effectively implement.

"As to what you're to do. You know, the usual. Eat, drink, sleep, heal. When you're ready we'll go run some diagnostics and gauge some metrics as to your capabilities. How fast you can run, how far you can jump, how much you can lift. Etcetera and so on.

"What you've become, that's a bit trickier to answer. You've become a marvel of cutting edge medical science. You've become a unique representation of the human condition." Faustus had at this point been ticking these points off on one hand, but for the final one leaned in over his knees and spoke in a clear voice. "You've become a weapon. When we're all done here, what you'll do is what weapons do. You'll be used, and with terrific results. If my calculations are correct, you're one hell of a weapon."

[Vanilla Poltergeist Snake]

You've become a weapon

Every word that escaped the Architect impacted him with colossal force. Moreover, every word that escaped him emerged as a thin, glowing line. Swirling incandescence that drifted upwards with ghostly efficiency, joining the myriad threads of sound that provided sight for the Magitech creation. Alfred stirred in discomfort, attempting to shake the geological mass of colors and various mana signatures from his mind; attempting the shake the truth of his situation from his thoughts. His eyes opened and his vision remained a blurred mess, focused almost entirely upon the glowing ember of the mad scientist's faux cigarette. "A great deal of trauma" suddenly seemed an inadequate description.

The man laughed. The sound started as an uncertain rumbling in his torso, but soon grew in volume, his secondary senses flashing as they updated his visual feeds with the newly formed sound. He laughed and laughed, simply overcome with the tremendous weight of madness. Simply overcome with the ecstacy of his rebirth. Thankfully, sanity and reason soon reasserted their collective grasp on his mind, and with no small amount of reluctance, he forced himself to accept that only time would be able to unravel the great mystery that had been thrust upon him. Only time would answer the question why.

"I'm sorry," He said, resolving to keep focused, despite the indecipherable haze his human vision visited upon him.

"I can't help but feel like I've become trapped in a nightmare. And yet, I feel remarkably lucid."

He cast a swift downward glance at his hands, observing them with a faint grin. Black digits wriggled about as he tested the functionality of the prosthetics, his arms extending to their full length before flopping back down onto the matress.

"You've managed to grant me control over this nightmare, and for that, you have my eternal thanks."

Alfred pulled the sterile sheets away from his legs and swung them over the edge of the bed. The soles of his feet touched the floor and he was surprised to discover that they still retained a sense of feeling - the floor was cold to the touch.

"Though, naturally, I'm sure that goes without saying. My memory is spotty on all the details, but from what I'm able to recall, I was little more than the tattered husk of a man when you... you know. Came into my head."

Inwardly, he cringed. Drawing upon those memories, if only briefly, visibly disturbed him. Al released a sigh and ran his unfamiliar fingers through his hair, buffeted once more by the technicolor tempest that whirled behind his human vision. Even now, his eyes shifted, gaining a deeper, more vibrant shade of yellow as he reflexively scanned the incoming data. The realtime stream was interrupted as a flash of trees filled his mind. He saw the beast.

A snarling behemoth.

That howl.

Alfred blinked and reality came back to him in a rush, a fresh wave of nausea close on it's heels. "I need to go hunting," his voice emerging in an uncharacteristic monotone, the response automatic.

"When can we begin testing?"

[Faustus]

A haze of smoke billowed about his features, obscuring the more specific details of his expression, though unable to hide the fact that his golden eyes remained trained on Alfred unfailingly. Faustus took another pull from the cigarette and let the white smoke pour from his lips like mist from the mouth of an idol.

"Oh, and it might behoove you to know that we managed the reconstruction pre-lycanthropic metamorphosis. The virus was most definitely present, by the droves even, but the transformation had not yet taken root. You'll no doubt struggle somewhat with the primitive instincts and urges awakened in you by proxy, but it should only be a matter of time before your civilized mind suppresses them once again."

Faustus ashed the cigarette by flicking the butt of it with his thumb. Like flakes of falling snow, but for the grey, they descended towards the floor in their lazy, roundabout manner only to catch on what seemed to be an invisible receptacle. They hung in the air as if caught in a curved ashtray riding currents unseen by the eye. To further solidify this phantasm Faustus reached out with the smoldering remains of the cigarette and snubbed it out in the same place that held his ashtray, then released it, and the cigarette butt hung there of its own accord as well.

He reached into his coat pocket, where he had last replaced the pack of thin, white coffin nails.

"When can we begin testing?"
"Oh, as soon as the moment suits."

Then he withdrew his hand from the confines of his coat, took casual aim at Alfred's head and brought the gun down in a straight line, squeezing the trigger three times in rapid succession; one for the head, one for the chest, one for the legs.

[Vanilla Poltergeist Snake]

Alfred blinked dumbly as Faustus slipped a hand into his coat, his breath catching in his throat as the firearm was revealed. In the few seconds before the sound of the metallic discharge erupted throughout the room, he felt a surge of energy course like frozen adrenaline through his blood, the sudden alertness reflected in his second sight as an fresh wave of informartion flashed in his mind, pupils reduced to black pinheads as they focused upon the tip of the barrel. Was this fear? Panic? The once brilliant symphony of colors in his mind was turned to a deep crimson as the first projectile burst from chamber.

This is control.

His subconscious took note as three shots rang out, the first of the projectiles a thin white line as it flew towards the center of his forehead. Alfred responded instinctively as the mana core within his chest buzzed, the glowing runes emblazoned across his Magitech limbs flaring suddenly with the influx of power. The line etched through his mind was suddenly severed as though bisected with surgical precision - the line faded, and his interal sensors immediately targeted the second projectile, dispatching it with equal amounts of blinding speed and reflexive motion.

The physical manifestation of the sudden discharge took the form of a dark purple scar suddenly tearing it's way into reality, a brief, slim explosion of raw chaotic magical energy that cleft the projectile in twain, jerking downward with a flash as it took the second nail dead-center. The continued inertia of the nails saw them scattered usely around their intended target, burrowing deep into the furniture positioned around him with a quartet of solid thuds.

For the third time, the violet scar darted hastily after the remaining missile, but winked out unexpectedly as Alfred gasped in uncontrolled astonishment. The nail struck the outer curve of his calf, but was repulsed by the density of the armored prosthetic and glanced off with a spark. Though intact, the projectile had wedged itself head-deep into the bedside table on his right, splintering the glossy varnish from the vicious impact.

Al stared wide-eyed at Archy, his mouth hanging agape.

"Did you fucking see that?" He gasped, shock apparent upon every excited note. "I just cut those nails out of the air with my mind!"

With the combat situation concluded, his senses flashed as the crimson lines around the room adjusted, growing dim, and then bright, as that technicolor tempest swirled back to life. A multitude of exhaust valves opened themselves as a glowing prompt appeared in his second sight. The display showed the overall percentage of active chaotic energy that still pulsed through his body, and with a thought, the energy dispersed and was recycled into his core. A low howl escaped the quivering valves as the flow of discared energy rushed through, the lowly 25% only yielding an atmospheric effect akin to a strong breeze rolling out in all directions, causing the various forms of linen around the room to flutter with it's passage. The valves closed, and the bright flare of the myriad runes carved across his body was extinguished as well, replaced by the noticeably less volatile soft blue glow.

The air around them felt charged with a pleasant static as the displaced mana resumed it's casual, relentless flow.

"You've got a quick draw there, Arch. Nice shooting." Alfred said, suddenly regaining his composure. This is control, he thought, smiling at the man with golden eyes.

[Faustus]

"Did you fucking see that? I just cut those nails out of the air with my mind!"
"I was less than ten feet away." Faustus eased himself out of the seat and into a standing position, waving the smoking gun in hand in Alfred's general direction, but without tongues of flame this time. "Not to mention I did the actual shooting. Of course I saw it."

Judging by tone of voice alone, it seemed almost painfully evident that Faustus entertained no notion of incensing Alfred. He was perfectly neutral in diction and elocution, simply stating facts. But judging by the words alone, the choice of them and their syntactical arrangement even in a toneless void, it seemed as if censure was a foregone conclusion.

He took a few steps this way, rummaged around, then a few steps that way and did the same thing. Now he stood in the light, in his right hand holding a pair of tweezers that lofted, between their precision tips, one fragment of one of the bullets Alfred deflected. He said nothing, expressed nothing. Merely replaced one fragment with another and scrutinized it in the blade of sun streaming through the window.

"You've got a quick draw there, Arch. Nice shooting."
"Thanks. You should see me when I'm actually trying."

. . .

"To be honest," Faustus finally shattered the thick sheet of introspective silence, after some ten odd minutes spent in a world of pure thought. "It's a little sloppy. The first one is clean down the middle. I attribute that to reflex, to muscle memory. Completely out of your own control, and more a testament to my own skill than anything. The second one, that's where your me gets in the way. This one has a curvature in its cross-section, you see. You spun it out to one side.

"The third one. Well as we both can see you missed that one completely. It's good to see your bionic limbs are as rugged projected. We've only tested it flat out, brick size and shape. We weren't sure whether the curves attendant of a natural humanoid biology would weaken the material or not. Seems to have made it stronger. That's good.

"You do realize, of course, that if these were explosive rounds, your face would be riddled with holes and your leg would be missing. We need to work on your 3D perspective; thinking and acting down multiple, concurrent paths. The increase in synaptic connections and upgrade to the more conventional electro-chemical mechanism for thought provides a grand foundation for us to build on, but it doesn't matter how sharp the sword is if the arm wielding it is . . . inexperienced."

Faustus didn't go on to mention that Alfred's venting system was a bit too overt for his tastes; that any being with a sufficiently advanced organ or contraption would be able to sniff him out for a short time after the vent; that he intended to address these problems in the next model.

But these things wouldn't do any good to Alfred's already fragile psyche, and he needed the man optimistic and eager.

"Come on. Let's go get some more testing done."

Without further ado, the golden eyed man named Architect led Alfred down a series of twisting hallways that eventually brought them to an underground facility which, at a word, flooded with artificial light that perfectly mimicked the aurulent glow of a warm, sunny day. The facility was an enormous gymnasium, suitable for a variety of physical tests.

Day 1 were tests strictly of Alfred's 'explosive power', which in this context meant more his ability to apply sudden and drastic strength than his ability to issue forth whips of energy. The results of a 100-meter dash, a discuss throw, a shot put, a long jump, and various weight exercises were tested and recorded; Alfred broke records without so much as inspiring a sheen of sweat. Day 2 were matters of endurance. One, three, and five miles runs, carrying sandbags to and fro and over and under things, running underwater and things of that nature.

Day 3 were tests of a purely mental nature. These were more difficult to quantify as Faustus lacked the information necessary to establish an accurate baseline, so they measured Alfred's current results against a weighted average and against anecdotal evidence of Alfred's own supply. He was capable of nearly total recall of anything he laid his eyes on for a second or more, capable of more easily referencing associated information and of generally more nimble ability of thought. A consequence of this being that Aflred appeared more 'witty' and 'clever' than he had prior, these otherwise frivolous distinctions hinting at a great engine of cognition.

Day 4 came with weak rays of sunlight that listlessly penetrated a bleak, dull sky; winter was early roused from its deep slumber and soon would be upon them.

[Vanilla Poltergeist Snake]

The heavy shroud of stillness and silence that crept in with the night was disturbed only by the soft, electric blue glow that eminated from the still form seated in the shadows. The statue-esque figure appeared to be deep within a meditative state, threads of violet energy coursing with aqueous grace across his faintly illuminated limbs. Alone he sat, in the center of the room, steadily drawing in breath; each rush of air delicately accented with the unnatural sweetness of magic. Alfred had discovered early on that sleep had become quite useless to him. The dense core of living mana that pulsed inside of him casually swept away traces of cumbersome fatigue, replacing them with the instatiable knowledge to grow. To understand; himself, and the world that thrummed with life all around him. His own world, a private sanctuary that existed just beyond the fringe of his human mind. A place where his weakness had been turned into strength, his fear into courage. With a simple thought, his conscious mind could be submerged in the dreamlike ichor that shaped his very being. It had become Alfred's wish, his obsession, to become intimately familiar with every modicum of energy and knowledge, every shred of understanding that he could obtain had become a vital piece of his continued survival. He relished the private wealth of knowing, and strove onward with endless vigor and determination to unlock the secrets of his own existence.

The Magitech creation allowed himself to briefly recall the trials that had been visited upon him over the past three days. He had already scanned each individual memory with the utmost scrutiny, but he continually found himself drawn to these particular thoughts. They served as checkmarks, physical reminders of his progress. In many ways, he had to relearn a number of basic functions. Running and walking had provided the first challenges, due to his initial discomfort with his prosthetic limbs. Since those first few awkward steps, however, he'd managed to gain a sense of grace, and was no longer overcome with the disorienting sensation of phantom limbs that had been replaced. He learned to accept the enhancements as an extension of himself - just another piece of the weapon - and discovered that he commanded an inherent control over them, much like he once had over his flesh limbs.

He thought of his second sight, the myriad lines of distinct color and energy that formed the blueprints of reality. Even now, the full extent of his abilities remained a mystery, and this dilemma reflected in his mind. Certain aspects of his secret world still proved elusive and ambiguous, functioning more on reflex than command, which proved to be quite frustrating on a number of occassions. He constantly toyed with the shapes in his mind, bending and refracting the light to suit his whims. This, of course, produced physical effects, which he noted he couldn't completely control. As his level of overall understanding increased, so did the depth of his abilities, and their overall efficacy. During his physical trials, Alfred noticed that adrenaline greatly increased his senses, and the power of his energy bursts. Even weapons crafted from living energy under these stimulated conditions were more powerful; almost sentient at times. Al was beginning to learn how best to channel these rampant, chaotic energies, and discovered that he'd yet to meet a barrier he was unable to overcome.

There's always a catch, he mused.

While he had made remarkable progress over the relatively short span of time, Alfred was still plagued with his fragmented psyche. He experienced difficulty concentrating at times, his focus drawn towards the swirling void in the back of his mind. It was during these dreamphases that he was visited be the colossal black beast, that unearthly howl. He wondered if such a monster could be dismantled, limb by limb, just as he had been. He wondered if the creature was truly Death incarnate, and continued to carve it's bloody swathe of destruction. Frankly, he wondered about a great deal of things.

How is it that I still feel like a man being led to the gallows? I've become stronger, I'm in control now... aren't I?" The gently swaying lines of mana had no reply.

Alfred felt the presence of dawn before his eyes could see it. There was a subtle shift in his internal senses; shadows receeding, light pouring in, mana signatures altered slightly as the intrusion of light urged them back into motion. Everything seemed louder during the day, and while his nightvision was nearly flawless, he found that daylight was still an invaluable tool. The violet threads of arcane energy began to coalesce near his core, being absorbed naturally as the living statue began to levitate off the ground. Having risen several feet off the floor, Alfred began to unfold, stretching his limbs and willing the stiffness from his human components before easing his feet back onto the floor.

Cold gray light came through the single window of his room and spalshed upon the floor, expanding gradually as the sun rose higher into the sky. The light crept along his flesh, greedily consuming the shadows that had lingered within the curves and grooves of his body. Alfred reached up to tie a thin black cloth over his eyes, closing out the light as his second senses awakened within his mind. He preferred to rely upon his Magitech senses, circumventing any issues that might arrive from his lack of clear vision. Alfred drew in a breath, tasting winter's chill upon the air. He dressed quickly in his regulation suit - a form-fitting black bodysuit equipped with an array of sensors that constantly monitored his vitals, as well as energy expenditures, temperature, and periodic exhaust discharges. Alfred left the confines of his room and moved with haste down the hallway, his senses adjusting naturally as he rounded the corner and made his way towards the testing area.

The fourth day of trials was about to commence, and Alfred grinned wolfishly with anticipation.

[Faustus]

Alfred stepped through the threshold that led him into the testing grounds. It was only as the door slid shut with the heavy thud of stone meeting stone, and the smell and feel of unfamiliar humidity triggered a response from deep down inside. It was dark, darker than Alfred's memory could recollect the testing grounds being even when the lights were turned off, like all apertures through which natural light may have flowed were blocked off.

By straining his sight, Alfred could make a rough silhouette of the room; it had been transformed to imitate the intestines of a cave. The floor underneath was rough and uneven, tread by no human feet before his. Stalactites jutted from the ceiling, stalagmites shot from the ground, and together it gave the entire cavern, vast in proportion, the rough semblance of a huge, yawning maw with rows of jagged teeth all along the roof and floor of its mouth, beckoned to stay open by some unseen force trembling on the very edge of exhaustion.

With his finely tuned sonar senses, however, exact detail of the cavern blossomed before his perception, though attributes such as color and the microscopic differences that only the eye could pick up would be forever beyond him. As he inched forward, there revealed itself a lone figure at the opposite end. One of slender build that drew itself to its full height of 7 feet in a most sinister way.

With some degree of concentration, in amounts far from meager, Alfred would be able to make out the distinct swaying and swishing of four tentacles that came down to about the figure's chest, and spawned directly from its face. Alfred required no special attribute to see the red fury pouring from the creature's eyes as it trained its malevolent stare on its prey.

Spoiler:

It reaches out a hand with sickly, spindly fingers and extends the tip of a single digit. Its maw widens, ropes of drool dripping to the ground and with an unnatural, guttural grunt launches an offensive. The ground between them sweeps aside and nearly crumples under the impetus of the telekinetic blast that the mindflayer unleashes to sweep Alfred off his feet.

[Vanilla Poltergeist Snake]

Alfred reached the heavy double doors of the training grounds with haste, every breath laced with the gentle influx of raw mana, his movement fluid and graceful, obscuring his steady gait with the illusion of levitation. As he reached for the door, his secondary senses flared with a sudden rush of color as they rapidly scanned the energy readings seeping through the solid wood. A chill ran swift along his fingertips and coursed it's way along his arm, creeping into his chest, where it was dispersed instantaneously throughout the rest of his body, causing him to shudder involuntarily. Instinctively he knew that whatever lay in wait beyond the doorway was sinister in design, and increasingly clear in his second sight. Alfred swallowed his trepidation with practiced stoicism and pushed the door open.

Alarm ran through his veins as he collided with absolute darkness. The air was heavy and rank with dark energy, thick enough to suck the oxygen from a lesser being. As it was, he staggered forward a few steps as his inner sonar cast it's invisible waves throughout the room. Alfred's Magitech components adjusted themselves to the readings pouring into his mind, greedily consuming thin threads of mana as the room made itself clear to him.

Some test, he thought, finally arriving at sense of unity with the harsh presence of magic that crowded in around him, filtering through his very pores. The vicious maw gave him brief pause as he entered, the ground beneath his feet feeling slick and uneven; warped by some chaotic presence. The glow emanating from the runic symbols etched across his body cast long shadows across the rows of jagged teeth that stretched out like a graveyard before him; though, in his perception, they appeared as jagged mountaintops in the distance, the majority of their curvature lost to his senses. Alfred allowed a soft sigh to escape his lips, noting that the stupid grin he'd worn moments ago had straightened into a thin line.

With a thought, his inner core thrummed with power and he focused on the shifting mana signatures before him. The exhaust valves positioned across his body opened, gulping in massive amounts of color and energy, jagged flashes of black and violet light skittering across his frame as the chaotic magics he controlled filtered out, the air around him charged with the sudden, violent presence of the warped energy. Alfred willed himself into the air, lifted higher into the vast expanse of the great maw by the distorted threads of mana that eagerly bent to his command. With a faint mental push, the gathered energy burst and hurled him forward into the fleshy abyss of the horrific cavern. Alfred rode the sudden rush and carefully envisioned his descent, and moments later, his feet collided with the soft and uneven subtance beneath them, causing him to slip and inch or two before he tucked into a crip roll, absorbing some of the residual impact.

As he rose to his feet, an unfamiliar prescence filled his mental sight, pulsing and oozing with a malevolent, crimson energy. The silhouette took on a more distinct shape as his senses instinctively focused on the image filling his mental display - a massive, black beast. Alfred winced as the dam barring those torturous memories from his consciousness ruptured, spewing blurred images of his demise into his mind's eye.

The very essence of the cavern shifted around him as though corrupted by a vicious contagion, shifting and distorting as the creature unleashed it's telekinetic fury.

His fractured psyche shook with a howl.

His secondary senses flashed their warning, honing in on the rapidly approaching telekentic wave. Clarity rang out in his mind, rippling outward through his body.

Alfred raised his left hand, fingers splayed, to welcome the blast. The runes etched into his left arm erupted with a sudden light, roaring to life as the telekenetic energy collided with his palm, halted instantly with an unnatural wail. The vicious ropes of violet and obsidian flame lashed out immediately, forcefully meshing with the creature's inherent mana signature, corrupting the finely wrought mental wave into a writhing, blazing mass of chaos. Alfred's will crushed the magic into a condensed beam with practiced ease, the chaotic energy crackling and flaring beneath his touch, coagulating into a thin, bladed shape. The gleaming manablade surged with frightening power, tendrils of it's colossal energy skittering along the length of his arm. He banished all thoughts of defeat from his mind, his hightened senses focused on the creature in front of him.

Alfred brought the weapon across in a swift horizontal slash, offering the beast a quick salute before he exploded into motion, flashing forward like a blur as his hands shifted into an offensive two-handed grip. The massive displacement of energy around him shook and cracked like a sonic boom, fragments of chaotic mana stretched into lethal splinters and reversed their trajectories, curling backwards and chasing after their master in a glowing arch. He arrested his motion and brought the blade across in a vicious slash aimed for the creatures torso, the rain of violet energy arching downward around him, stabbing towards the creature with palpable, screaming hatred.