Mercy's Limit
May 9, 2013 19:33:52 GMT -5
Post by Vinny on May 9, 2013 19:33:52 GMT -5
OOC: Broadcasting to you live from the tarmac at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, where the local time is 'GET ME OFF THIS FUCKING PLANE.' Apologies for not formatting better. I'm like dislocating my arm right now to type this. The mouth-breather next to me is sleeping on top of me and the poor girl in the aisle seat. Anyways, dood luck, Cash.
-----------------------
Erie, PA.
Molly Brannigan's is an Irish pub in Erie, PA; a few blocks from the Bayfront Convention Center and the eponymous Lake Erie. The crowd is light for a Thursday with a smattering of college-aged patrons taking advantage of the discounted domestic beers and half-price shots. A particular loud group of four young women occupies a booth in the far right corner of the bar area. Other patrons are scattered throughout, some eating a standard pub-fare dinner and others cozied up to the bar with a pint close by.
Malcolm Drake sits among those individuals at the bar, his torso slouched over the bar top and his right hand holding firm to a half-empty pint of some dark brew. A black leather jacket hangs slumped over the back of his high-back barstool. Drake wears only a ratty black T-shirt, worn dark jeans and black combat boots. His blond hair overhangs his face as he appears to be staring down at the countertop. Drake tilts his head up to sip from the pint glass before letting out a loud “ahhh” and smacking his lips together. He swings himself sideways, resting an elbow on the bar-top and smirking nonchalantly.
“Well,” he says matter-of-factly, “do you BELIEVE me yet? Have enough of my prophetic musings come true that you FINALLY take me seriously? HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR ENOUGH?!”
Drake slams a fist on the countertop with a thud, drawing careful glances from other patrons in the bar. One person sitting relatively close to Drake picks up his drink and moves a few seats further away. In the far corner, the girls turn and begin to point, giggling among themselves.
“You all laughed and laughed and laughed… but now you see that The Murder is not a joke. I AM NOT a joke. And soon… soon any remaining doubts will be as DEAD and BURIED as Allister Manigold and Akrista O’Hare. Soon they will be as forgotten as Micky O’Reilly. Soon they will be as shattered and broken as Patrick. Gordon. Junior.”
Drake sneers and his faces puckers as if he’s tasted something awful. He takes a long swig from his pint glass and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. Over his shoulder the young women in the corner are whispering. One of them rises to her feet with her friends giggling behind her. The young woman is blonde, in her early twenties, and has shown little restraint in her make-up. She wears a flight top tight around herself with a red bra visible underneath; a bright red, Lycra-esque mini skirt and a pair of white and red pumps. By the way she moves slowly it is apparently that she is either inexperienced in the steep heels, intoxicated or a combination of the two.
Drake, for his part, does not notice her approach having his back turned away. He continues.
“This weekend in Erie, the power shifts. They say that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to make the world believe He doesn’t exist. The greatest trick that I have pulled – at least SO FAR – is to make you think The Murder was self-contained. But two horrible crows does hardly a Murder make. Mr. Pooler, forgive the pun, was waiting in the wings. I said it before and no one believed me. Do you REALLY think I would allow myself to weaken the cause? Everything win and every loss was a strategic plan. An initiative. A crucial part of the long con. That’s why YOU didn’t know. That’s why YOU couldn’t figure it out. That is why I am playing chess while the rest of FGA is gnawing on the pieces like a pack of mouth-breathing troglodytes. And that is why Mr. Pooler, under my guidance, will become the Pride Champion this weekend.”
Drake finishes the reminder of his beer and delicately places the glass down on the bar. Behind him the young blonde approaches, her eyes fixated on the camera that Drake is addressing. Drake remains oblivious, caught up in his diatribe.
“And while I would have preferred to obtain the number one contendership myself, it was MY sacrifices that allowed Mr. Harter to emerge victorious from the Gold Rush Rumble. It was MY teaching that brought him to that skill level. In essence, I won the Gold Rush Rumble… Mr. Harter is simply the vessel that holds the Murder’s triumph. He is the sword that will strike the head off the beast that is Frontier Grappling Arts when he ANNIHILATES Christopher Q. And he will be the spark that starts the funeral pyre that will BURN FGA into… ashes. I-“
“Hi!”
Drake nearly falls from his barstool as the young blonde woman has snuck behind him. Her gaze darts quickly between Drake and the camera, decidedly showing more interest in the latter. Drake wipes the hair out of his face, looking the woman up and down and says nothing. He stares in disbelief that he was interrupted.
“I’m Crystal,” the young man says sliding onto the barstool next to Drake while remaining in the sight of the camera, “what’s your name?”
Crystal extends her hand. Drake eyes it warily before responding without shaking it.
“Drake.”
“Drake? That’s… uh… a cool name,” she presently lowers her hand onto the bar-top and eyes the camera again, “What are ya filming for?”
Drake looks back over his shoulder at the camera. His face is a mask of bewilderment and annoyance.
“FGA.”
“FGA? What’s that, like, a TV station?” Crystal’s attention peaks with the prospect.
“A wrestling promotion.”
“Oh,” she says in a quiet tone that betrays disappointment, “but like, will it be on TV?”
“No,” Drake responds sharply and following a brief pause, “It is a DVD taping.”
“Oh! So like a movie?!” Crystal’s voice is in a pitch that can’t be much lower than a dog whistle, “I’d loooove to be in the movies.”
Crystal leans forward and reaches out her hand that was sitting on the bar to caress Drake’s closest arm. To his credit, Drake avoids his inclination to recoil. He stares at the hand, back up to the girl and back to the hand while the girl stares from him to the camera and finally back to Drake. As their eyes meet, something strange happens.
Drake… smiles. Crystal smiles with a mouth full of pearly white teeth, thinking she has found her opening. But Drake quickly clamps down his other hand across Crystal’s wrist and squeezes it as he removes her hand from his arm, holding it up in the air.
“Ow! You’re hurting me!” Crystal squeals in pain, and with a sharp jerk Drake pulls her closer by the wrist. The legs of her barstool skitter across the ground until her face is inches from Drake’s still smiling one. She tries to pull back, but his grip is too strong.
“You can scream,” Drake says in a hushed tone barely above a whisper with the smile still on his face, “but it really won’t help you. I know you’re scared. I can FEEL your heart racing through your pulse. You should be scared. You should be terrified. You can scream but before anyone else could hear, before anyone could get her to help you… it’d be too late. Look in my eyes… Crystal… how many HORRIBLE things do you think are in there, hmmm? How many ways can I think to hurt you that will only take a split… second. Let it sink in. You are at my mercy. Do I look like a man with a lot of mercy? DO I?!”
Crystal shakes her head from side to side, silently. Tears are streaming through her eye shadow and mascara leaving long black streaks down her cheeks. Drake snarls and bares his teeth before… releasing her wrist and turning his back to her. Crystal hesitates only for a moment before attempting to run away. She slips in her heels and starts crawling and scrambling to get away. Drake ignores her plight, removes a crumbled bill from his jeans and tosses it onto the bar.
“I suppose I’ve over-stayed my welcome.”
Drake flicks his jacket off the barstool, letting the chair fall to the floor with a loud clang as he saunters out the front door. Throwing the jacket on, Drake continues walking down the street.
“There are those of us that pick the scraps,” he says in the direction of his feet, “who have to scratch and claw and peck for every morsel of food. We aren’t given chances. We don’t have opportunities. We MAKE them and then we TAKE them. We are not clean. We are not soft. We are not weak. We are forged through misfortune and trial. We are tempered in pain and misery. We bear the scars and the disfigurements.”
Drake flicks his head up, scattering his hair from his face.
“You and I, J.T. Cash, are not even the same species. I am a man and you… are an insect. A parasite. You latch your pretty little mouth onto the mass of the misfortunate and you suck the life from them. You brag of cars and houses and trinkets while the “people,” the people you claim to LOVE go STARVING like DOGS. Like… street bitches as you so eloquently put it, you opulent, smug little puke. Your wealth makes you weak and soft. Your hubris makes you vulnerable. Your arrogance has sealed your fate. You think I envy you, Cash?”
Drake stops walking.
“No… But I do despise you. You look at me and say “there’s the villain, there’s the bad guy, there’s the mad man,” while you and your ilk rob the people you claim to LOVE while their heads our turned. But I’m the evil one, is that right? How Maccahiavellian. But that’s the way you are isn’t it? No one knows who their killer is when you stab them in the back. When you betray them. The Murder is violent, we spill our share of blood, but at least we stab in the front and don’t hide in the back like COWARDS.”
Drake spits.
“You say that I am everything you will never be? If I believed in God, I’d thank Him for that. I don’t want to be WEAK. I don’t want to be SOFT. I don’t want to be a COWARD. I don’t want to be some LEMMING, some INSECT, some RAT… dancing to the tune of a thousand pied pipers. I don’t want to be and WILL NEVER BE as PATHETIC… as you. You brag about your moves but where will those get you. I’ve taken out men twice your size with nothing more than punch, kick and choke. So bring your shiniest Shining Wizards and your most flammable Burning Hammers because much like your wealth, your mansions, your cars… they won’t save you. NOTHING can save you from me. If you’re a careful listener you heard me say I’m not a man with an abundance of mercy and back there…”
Drake stops and points a jagged arm in the direction of Molly Brannigan’s.
“… it just ran out. But I’m sure in your hubris and bravado you’d say you don’t want mercy. You want violence. You want me to PROVE that I am what everyone says I am. Well, I am… not… what everyone says I am. I’m so much better and so much worse. You want proof? The entire damn history of Frontier Grappling Arts is written in the BLOOD that I have spilled in that ring…”
Drake’s face twists into a cockeyed smirk.
“… but I’d be willing to write another chapter with yours. And as a spoiler: the hero in his golden armor, he DIES at the end.”
Drake’s smirk vanishes from his face and his features slip back into the shadows beneath his ragged blond locks.
“Momento… mori.”
-----------------------
Erie, PA.
Molly Brannigan's is an Irish pub in Erie, PA; a few blocks from the Bayfront Convention Center and the eponymous Lake Erie. The crowd is light for a Thursday with a smattering of college-aged patrons taking advantage of the discounted domestic beers and half-price shots. A particular loud group of four young women occupies a booth in the far right corner of the bar area. Other patrons are scattered throughout, some eating a standard pub-fare dinner and others cozied up to the bar with a pint close by.
Malcolm Drake sits among those individuals at the bar, his torso slouched over the bar top and his right hand holding firm to a half-empty pint of some dark brew. A black leather jacket hangs slumped over the back of his high-back barstool. Drake wears only a ratty black T-shirt, worn dark jeans and black combat boots. His blond hair overhangs his face as he appears to be staring down at the countertop. Drake tilts his head up to sip from the pint glass before letting out a loud “ahhh” and smacking his lips together. He swings himself sideways, resting an elbow on the bar-top and smirking nonchalantly.
“Well,” he says matter-of-factly, “do you BELIEVE me yet? Have enough of my prophetic musings come true that you FINALLY take me seriously? HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR ENOUGH?!”
Drake slams a fist on the countertop with a thud, drawing careful glances from other patrons in the bar. One person sitting relatively close to Drake picks up his drink and moves a few seats further away. In the far corner, the girls turn and begin to point, giggling among themselves.
“You all laughed and laughed and laughed… but now you see that The Murder is not a joke. I AM NOT a joke. And soon… soon any remaining doubts will be as DEAD and BURIED as Allister Manigold and Akrista O’Hare. Soon they will be as forgotten as Micky O’Reilly. Soon they will be as shattered and broken as Patrick. Gordon. Junior.”
Drake sneers and his faces puckers as if he’s tasted something awful. He takes a long swig from his pint glass and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. Over his shoulder the young women in the corner are whispering. One of them rises to her feet with her friends giggling behind her. The young woman is blonde, in her early twenties, and has shown little restraint in her make-up. She wears a flight top tight around herself with a red bra visible underneath; a bright red, Lycra-esque mini skirt and a pair of white and red pumps. By the way she moves slowly it is apparently that she is either inexperienced in the steep heels, intoxicated or a combination of the two.
Drake, for his part, does not notice her approach having his back turned away. He continues.
“This weekend in Erie, the power shifts. They say that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to make the world believe He doesn’t exist. The greatest trick that I have pulled – at least SO FAR – is to make you think The Murder was self-contained. But two horrible crows does hardly a Murder make. Mr. Pooler, forgive the pun, was waiting in the wings. I said it before and no one believed me. Do you REALLY think I would allow myself to weaken the cause? Everything win and every loss was a strategic plan. An initiative. A crucial part of the long con. That’s why YOU didn’t know. That’s why YOU couldn’t figure it out. That is why I am playing chess while the rest of FGA is gnawing on the pieces like a pack of mouth-breathing troglodytes. And that is why Mr. Pooler, under my guidance, will become the Pride Champion this weekend.”
Drake finishes the reminder of his beer and delicately places the glass down on the bar. Behind him the young blonde approaches, her eyes fixated on the camera that Drake is addressing. Drake remains oblivious, caught up in his diatribe.
“And while I would have preferred to obtain the number one contendership myself, it was MY sacrifices that allowed Mr. Harter to emerge victorious from the Gold Rush Rumble. It was MY teaching that brought him to that skill level. In essence, I won the Gold Rush Rumble… Mr. Harter is simply the vessel that holds the Murder’s triumph. He is the sword that will strike the head off the beast that is Frontier Grappling Arts when he ANNIHILATES Christopher Q. And he will be the spark that starts the funeral pyre that will BURN FGA into… ashes. I-“
“Hi!”
Drake nearly falls from his barstool as the young blonde woman has snuck behind him. Her gaze darts quickly between Drake and the camera, decidedly showing more interest in the latter. Drake wipes the hair out of his face, looking the woman up and down and says nothing. He stares in disbelief that he was interrupted.
“I’m Crystal,” the young man says sliding onto the barstool next to Drake while remaining in the sight of the camera, “what’s your name?”
Crystal extends her hand. Drake eyes it warily before responding without shaking it.
“Drake.”
“Drake? That’s… uh… a cool name,” she presently lowers her hand onto the bar-top and eyes the camera again, “What are ya filming for?”
Drake looks back over his shoulder at the camera. His face is a mask of bewilderment and annoyance.
“FGA.”
“FGA? What’s that, like, a TV station?” Crystal’s attention peaks with the prospect.
“A wrestling promotion.”
“Oh,” she says in a quiet tone that betrays disappointment, “but like, will it be on TV?”
“No,” Drake responds sharply and following a brief pause, “It is a DVD taping.”
“Oh! So like a movie?!” Crystal’s voice is in a pitch that can’t be much lower than a dog whistle, “I’d loooove to be in the movies.”
Crystal leans forward and reaches out her hand that was sitting on the bar to caress Drake’s closest arm. To his credit, Drake avoids his inclination to recoil. He stares at the hand, back up to the girl and back to the hand while the girl stares from him to the camera and finally back to Drake. As their eyes meet, something strange happens.
Drake… smiles. Crystal smiles with a mouth full of pearly white teeth, thinking she has found her opening. But Drake quickly clamps down his other hand across Crystal’s wrist and squeezes it as he removes her hand from his arm, holding it up in the air.
“Ow! You’re hurting me!” Crystal squeals in pain, and with a sharp jerk Drake pulls her closer by the wrist. The legs of her barstool skitter across the ground until her face is inches from Drake’s still smiling one. She tries to pull back, but his grip is too strong.
“You can scream,” Drake says in a hushed tone barely above a whisper with the smile still on his face, “but it really won’t help you. I know you’re scared. I can FEEL your heart racing through your pulse. You should be scared. You should be terrified. You can scream but before anyone else could hear, before anyone could get her to help you… it’d be too late. Look in my eyes… Crystal… how many HORRIBLE things do you think are in there, hmmm? How many ways can I think to hurt you that will only take a split… second. Let it sink in. You are at my mercy. Do I look like a man with a lot of mercy? DO I?!”
Crystal shakes her head from side to side, silently. Tears are streaming through her eye shadow and mascara leaving long black streaks down her cheeks. Drake snarls and bares his teeth before… releasing her wrist and turning his back to her. Crystal hesitates only for a moment before attempting to run away. She slips in her heels and starts crawling and scrambling to get away. Drake ignores her plight, removes a crumbled bill from his jeans and tosses it onto the bar.
“I suppose I’ve over-stayed my welcome.”
Drake flicks his jacket off the barstool, letting the chair fall to the floor with a loud clang as he saunters out the front door. Throwing the jacket on, Drake continues walking down the street.
“There are those of us that pick the scraps,” he says in the direction of his feet, “who have to scratch and claw and peck for every morsel of food. We aren’t given chances. We don’t have opportunities. We MAKE them and then we TAKE them. We are not clean. We are not soft. We are not weak. We are forged through misfortune and trial. We are tempered in pain and misery. We bear the scars and the disfigurements.”
Drake flicks his head up, scattering his hair from his face.
“You and I, J.T. Cash, are not even the same species. I am a man and you… are an insect. A parasite. You latch your pretty little mouth onto the mass of the misfortunate and you suck the life from them. You brag of cars and houses and trinkets while the “people,” the people you claim to LOVE go STARVING like DOGS. Like… street bitches as you so eloquently put it, you opulent, smug little puke. Your wealth makes you weak and soft. Your hubris makes you vulnerable. Your arrogance has sealed your fate. You think I envy you, Cash?”
Drake stops walking.
“No… But I do despise you. You look at me and say “there’s the villain, there’s the bad guy, there’s the mad man,” while you and your ilk rob the people you claim to LOVE while their heads our turned. But I’m the evil one, is that right? How Maccahiavellian. But that’s the way you are isn’t it? No one knows who their killer is when you stab them in the back. When you betray them. The Murder is violent, we spill our share of blood, but at least we stab in the front and don’t hide in the back like COWARDS.”
Drake spits.
“You say that I am everything you will never be? If I believed in God, I’d thank Him for that. I don’t want to be WEAK. I don’t want to be SOFT. I don’t want to be a COWARD. I don’t want to be some LEMMING, some INSECT, some RAT… dancing to the tune of a thousand pied pipers. I don’t want to be and WILL NEVER BE as PATHETIC… as you. You brag about your moves but where will those get you. I’ve taken out men twice your size with nothing more than punch, kick and choke. So bring your shiniest Shining Wizards and your most flammable Burning Hammers because much like your wealth, your mansions, your cars… they won’t save you. NOTHING can save you from me. If you’re a careful listener you heard me say I’m not a man with an abundance of mercy and back there…”
Drake stops and points a jagged arm in the direction of Molly Brannigan’s.
“… it just ran out. But I’m sure in your hubris and bravado you’d say you don’t want mercy. You want violence. You want me to PROVE that I am what everyone says I am. Well, I am… not… what everyone says I am. I’m so much better and so much worse. You want proof? The entire damn history of Frontier Grappling Arts is written in the BLOOD that I have spilled in that ring…”
Drake’s face twists into a cockeyed smirk.
“… but I’d be willing to write another chapter with yours. And as a spoiler: the hero in his golden armor, he DIES at the end.”
Drake’s smirk vanishes from his face and his features slip back into the shadows beneath his ragged blond locks.
“Momento… mori.”