“I was rooting for you, you know.” The Author sighs as he closes his notebook with a curt snap. He looks out across the small mob stood before him. Not a smile among them. It’s almost beautiful. “No really I was.”
Chances are they’ve already called for back up. These few may be the strongest of the group but only a fool would ignore the strength of numbers. It gives him precious little time to take advantage but you’ll forgive a wordsmith taking every opportunity to practice his craft.
“I so wanted you to break the mould. You know,” he places the book on the desk beside him, “be interesting. And yet,” he starts to twirl the pen between his fingers, spinning it quite expertly, especially considering Bing is usually all thumbs, “you just had to disappoint me.”
Dark attacks, letting that aura of his loose at the Author. Fast and furious, ringing and roaring. It swells, it consumes everything around it, sending a shiver down everyone’s spines. It’s a logical step. After all the Host lives in fear of their old friend’s power. It might have even worked...on the Host.
This Author is every bit as arrogant as the original, but with everything the Host learned when he made the grave mistake of taking his own eyes. Suddenly wise to the ways of the universe, empowered beyond his wildest imaginings, and suddenly able to see vast horrors that frankly are ineffable. It makes the Author volatile, and dangerous to a level that these idiots will never truly comprehend. Not to mention pretty damn fun.
The pen stops, Author gripping it like a sword as he slices it through the shadow as it approaches him. There’s a horrendous ripping sound and a loud scream as Dark falls to the ground his aura returning to him in almost an instant.
Next up to bat seems to be the scruffy glitchy green man. Bing’s memories identify him as ‘Anti’ but beyond that, he’s a complete wild card. Though from just one look at him it’s obvious he has problem waiting his turn. The air around the green man splits as he disappears. Teleportation? Well isn’t that interesting. Something new that might actually provide some variety, though not much.
Clearly very little emotional control. Likely to have rage issues. Likely will go straight or a kill shot meaning he will reappear right here. The Author swiftly grabs at the air beside him just as Anti appears, arm raised and sparking ready to punch. He doesn’t get the chance, the Author grabbing him and booting him into the wall beside them.
Suddenly, there’s a blast of purple that knocks the Author back against the desk. Something cricks in his back as he barely manages to keep from tumbling over the top and the taste of copper in his mouth tells him it was pretty powerful. Bim stands to the side, hands raised towards the Author as they glow with his purple magic.
Bim’s scowling. There’s that anger. It’s always been there, calmly hovering beneath that carefully crafted exterior, waiting for someone to turn up the heat and force it to boil over. Author had hoped he’d be the one to do it but more as a bonus than an actual goal. Still it’s disappointing that Bim doesn’t even have a single hair out of place. What does it take to shake this guy?
“Bold,” the Author chuckles as he wipes the blood from his lip “but ultimately pointless. I’m a student of human character,” he taps at the side of his forehead, “I know your weaknesses.” He gestures at Dark, “Arrogance,” he waves towards Anti, “Impusiveness,” he pins Bim with the a piercing glare, sending a shiver down the man’s spine, “Guilt.”
He turns to the remaining two. The red Google, brimming over with anger and a foolhardy obsession of strength, stood in place though it’s obvious he wants throw a punch. He’s stopped only by the firm hand on his shoulder from the other man whom it seems is not who the Author thought it was.
“You’re not Wilford,” he manages to say before there’s loud shouts and a brutal smack across the back of his head. He’s knocked to the floor, world spinning, ears ringing. It’s barely all he can do to keep from vomiting.
Stood over him, both looking very smug and each wielding a 2x4 are the Jims. See, as much as Dark likes to believe he limits their movements within the building, the building is more than their home. It’s their entire world and there is almost nowhere in the building they can’t travel to undetected if they so choose. They stay out of Dark’s ‘forbidden zones’ as a coutesy and because, frankly, they’re boring.
“I told you to stay at the warehouse.” Dark grumbles.
“Hey, Bing is family.” Jim scowls at Dark.
“Yeah,” other Jim adds, swinging his weapon up onto his shoulder, “We have as much right to die trying to save him as anybody.”
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Mark collapses to the ground, chest heaving, tears streaming and he fights not to break. By the time he can raise his head, heart broken, she’s long gone. The Author stands there, arms folded, smug, smirking.
Mark sneers at him, “That was not my wife.”
“No.” The Author chuckles gazing towards the exit through which she’d left, lips drawn into a cruel smile. “That was the alternate you dragged here from some other dimension with a crazy plan to force her to be with you. Except you forgot.” Stepping forward, arms dropping, the Author bends down and hisses at the mewling mess on the floor. “Your wife left you.”
Marks snatches at the Author’s collar, tugging harshly, dragging him down to Mark’s level as he all but spits in the man’s face. “My wife loved me!”
“Until she ran off.” He plucks Mark’s fingers from him, twisting them and dragging the bitch to his feet. There’s a moment between them, two angered souls glaring at each other, daring the other to make the first move, interrupted when the Author boots Mark in the stomach, and the ass just crumples to the floor, whimpering.
“I always thought you were better off without her, you know.” The Author admits. She and him had never really seen eye to eye. You put two large egos in a room like that, there’s going to be fireworks. But she’s for all intents and purposes dead, while he’s stronger than ever so he doesn’t hold any ill will for her. “She was a devilish woman. Very sly. And she grieved for all of about two seconds before turning your murder investigation to her benefit.”
Cowering on the floor, throbbing in pain, Mark cries. No! That’s not how it happened! She loved him! She loved him! When he is finally able to push himself up again, clutching his sore stomach beneath his aching heart, he spies the smug look on Julien’s stolen face.
“You knew.”
“That it wouldn’t work? Absolutely. Even if your wife hadn’t left you, she” he turns and gestures towards the door, “was always going to be an imperfect copy. The true soul of your wife resides in the creature that you declared your enemy, and I’ve yet to meet a being who would be strong enough to tear her free.”
“Lady Fate-”
“Would never help you.” Despite her work, Lady Fate has a tendency to love all creatures. She believes in the beauty of life even though all she sees is the dismal touch of death. It’s a part of her strength, I suppose. “Face it Mark, you’ve lost.”
Mark bows his head, and lets out a low growl. “I’m going to kill you!”
“Not without your Guardianship you won’t.”
“You-!”
There’s a satisfying smack and a sickening crunch as the Author kicks Mark’s face in. Blood pours from the now broken nose while Mark drops to the floor again.
“It’s weird.” the Author admits, nudging Mark with his foot, tilting his head and considering him carefully, “For years, all I’ve wanted is to see you dead. But seeing you like this….” The Author waits, but Mark doesn’t move. He just lays there, whimpering and crying and it sounds so good. “Letting you live, knowing what you now know about the woman you ‘love’, seems a far greater punishment.”
With that the Author turns and leaves, while Mark is left alone.
It’s taken a little while but here you go, another part of the main plotline, golly geez goshums.
As every last drop of Julien’s power is drawn from his body, Mark collapses to the floor, unconscious, and the Author steps forward to poke at the prone form with his bat. How many years has he spent afraid of this...thing? How long has he cowered in fear, stuck in the shadow of lesser beings, too afraid to stand on his own two feet and kick this pitiful creature to the curb like they all know that he can?
Too long. No more.
Drawing back his foot, the Host cries out for him to stop, but the Author swings it forward with force, and there’s a crunch as he breaks Mark’s nose with a swift kick to the face. Oooh, that felt good.
“Why did you do that?” The Host cries.
The Author turns. The Host is still on the floor, blood dripping down his cheeks from his bandages as he stares at their common enemy. Ah, himself, his ‘future’ self, his ‘evolved’ self, his weaker self. It looks like the Host still has some of that pesky cowardice that’s been holding him back all these years. Oh well, it doesn’t matter any more.
“Why didn’t you?” Stepping forward, the Author crouches down, peering at the wretched being before him. To think. This used to be him. Ha! “All that power knocking about in your brain and you have to call on me, and sell out one of your so-called friends in order to actually do anything.”
The Host opens his mouth, about to speak again but the Author places a firm hand over it, holding it closed.
“We both know, there’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already thought of. And then ignored.”
“Author?” comes the voice of the one other person in the room. Phantom. His very first character. A boy born of passion and promise and ideas. So much potential, and all of it wasted because of Mark. Just thinking of it makes the Author’s borrowed blood boil.
“It’s been a while.” Rising to his feet, the Author turns, tilting his head with a smirk. “Is it just me, or are you taller?”
Phantom stands his ground, hands twisting slightly around his recently recovered cane as he looks between the chaos before him. Strong, steadfast, resolute. There’s a hint of who Author intended him to be there but it’s flattened, buried beneath what the scumbags on the floor put him through.
“What’s happening?” The dealmaker asks.
“What should have happened from the beginning.” Turning, the Author sneers at the Host and Mark. Unworthy, unbearable. But still, maybe they can be of some use. “You were meant to be so much more than these shitheads allowed. And nothing is going to stop us from making sure you reach your true potential.”
Phantom looks to his cane before surveying those before him. He remembers the Author, his chaotic madness, his single-mindedness. Working with that was not going to be fun, but he has that spark in his eye, the one where he has a idea that the devil himself couldn’t keep him from. But maybe the devil isn’t needed...
‘Capable of great things’, that’s what he says. Maybe he is. Maybe Mark’s wrong. Maybe there’s a way Phantom can play this, a way to play them all.
Phantom holds his cane in one hand as he gives a slight sweeping bow, a long-missing smirk playing at his lips as he holds the Author’s gaze.
With the arrogance of Author 1.0, the knowledge of the Host, and none of the debilitating fear of what Mark is capable of, he is formidable, cocky and a force to be reckoned with.
Julien Michels, aka the Author, was an ambitious, arrogant fool who, encouraged by his Guardian, Mark, removed his own eyes in order to increase his power. He was not prepared for the horrors that opening his mind and removing all visual distraction would bring him, causing the unintended ‘death’ of the Author and the ‘birth’ of the Host. More powerful but infinitely more afraid.
Knowing that eventually Mark would come for him, having seen every possibility all at once.The Host took his iconic bat and infused it with his powers, intending for it to be used when Mark would rear his head again.
Forseeing that it was coming, The Host gifted the bat to Bing, the power within lying dormant until such time that Bing would be driven to offer himself for the power, allowing for the rebirth of the Author.
TL;DR: The Host‘s power is possessing cyborg!Bing giving Author 2.0 a brand spanking new body that’s got some pretty nifty upgrades and removing all fear caused by the traumatic loss of the Host’s eyes.
You are a self-aware character in a book. The author has tried many times to kill you, but you get away every time, until the author kidnaps you. You are taken to a room with two chairs in one sits the author, you sit in the other. What happens in this room?
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