Post by Khaos on May 2, 2021 17:43:19 GMT -5
“I see you came alone,” the voice spoke sarcastically, his eyes shifting from her to the camera man behind her.
Damien Carter stood shirtless in the dark, a black apron wrapped around his waist. His hands bore a pair of thick, rough, leather gloves as his body glistened with sweat from the fire. Though he tried to hide it, his face bore the scars of his battle at Danger Zone; a swollen black eye and a gash running from the top of his left eye down to his cheek.
“I w-was surprised you w-wanted to talk to me,” Jerika stammered, unable to look away from the grisly sight.
Her eyes went from the fresh wounds on his face to the various scars that adorned his arms and chest, but above all else… her eyes were always drawn to the six-pointed sun star encircled by three symmetrical barriers directly over his heart. It was so unique; so foreign, she always wanted to ask about what it represented, but was afraid to do so… her instincts telling her that this was one question that he would, likely, never want to answer.
“Talk to you…?” Damien responded, pondering the concept for a moment before setting back about his work. “More like, ‘through you’. You are a means to end, Jerika; if this upsets you…”
Damien nodded in the direction of the door as he brought the hammer down onto the anvil once more, slamming it down in a steady, symphonic rhythm that was almost hypnotic. Jerika pondered her options, believing that this may be the one time she was “free” to leave, but her feet remained firm. She tried peering over his shoulder to see what he was hard at work on, but his big frame blocked out the light from the fire, leaving his master craft hidden in the shadows.
“So is it safe to assume that you want me here because you want to address the Left Hand…” Jerika began, before Damien turned around and quickly silenced her with a dark look.
Damien could not mask the emotions on his face; the betrayal of Cerise, the blood-letting by Anya, the assault by Dream. So intense was his stare that Jerika could’ve sworn that the fire birthed in the forge burned just a bit brighter at the mention of those that ambushed him at Danger Zone. After a moment, he exhaled deeply, cracked his neck, and went back to work on his project.
“Does it surprise me that Cerise found others to back her?” Damien rhetorically asked, methodically tapping the hammer down once more. “No, of course not. Disappoints me, maybe; but not surprising. She’s not the type of person to go at it alone; which seems contradictory considering how much of a “loner” she claims to be. But it makes sense I suppose, clearly… there’s an advantage to having the numbers on your side.”
Damien turned away and dipped the object into the fire, heating the metal once more. Jerika tried to move closer to see what he was working on but the flames were too intense, making her eyes water.
“What’s the matter, Jerika?” Damien asked, a slight smirk on his face. “Too hot for you?”
Carter turned around, placing the red metal back onto the anvil and settled back into rhythm once more. His back, much like his chest, was decorated with various scars and cuts. Directly over his left shoulder blade appeared to be a large chunk of flesh that had been burned away. For a moment, she wondered if that had happened at Danger Zone. But, if the reports had been correct, the stagehands and crew had managed to get to Damien before any of the fire could do any actual damage.
“Damien…” Jerika swallowed, trying to think of just the right way to phrase her next words. “What happened at Danger Zone…”
“Was just the beginning,” Damien finished her thought, casting a quick glance over his shoulder back at her before carefully placing his finished product in a vat of water nearby, the steam and smoke rising as the heated-metal hissed in defiance.
Damien brought the piece down before him, his eyes tracing over every inch of it, before he turned back to face Jerika.
“See,” Damien began, peeling off the leather gloves from his hands, stretching his fingers and letting them breathe, the thickness of the material having coated his hands in dry perspiration. “The Left Hand is a group that I’m all too familiar with. Before I joined Revolution1, I had a brief introduction to the XWF. Within those walls, a woman by the name of Lycana resides; someone I have a very complicated history with...”
Damien glanced down at the marks that covered the majority of his body, most of which were given to him by her.
“They say time heals all wounds,” Damien scoffed, glancing into the fire of the forge as if he could remember every single one she given him. “The Left Hand was born in the XWF and like a cancer; it spread from federation to federation. Perhaps if I had joined XWF…”
Damien stopped himself short; shaking his head as he knew it was pointless to think of those things now. What’s done was done, and could not be undone.
“Regardless, I was drawn to Revolution1 for a reason and I now seem to know what it is,” Damien smiled, an evil glimmer in his eye. “See, the Left Hand is all smoke and mirrors, Jerika. They want you to think they are all-powerful; that they are this unstoppable force. But cut the head off the snake…”
Damien danced his fingers over the open forge before closing his fist, placing it directly into the flames path. Jerika had to blink in amazement, the fire seemingly parting as if he, somehow, had control over the blaze itself.
“The one man that gave them any sort of real power or creditability was the Baphomet,” Damien announced, watching the fire bend to his will. “And he is no more. So what you see now before you are the dying remnants of a faction that doesn’t even know its dead.”
Damien pulled his hand away from the forge and looked it over, seeing no traceable burn or scar left behind. He smirked, realizing the darkness he had once possessed was flowing freely through his veins once more. In a way, Cerise had restored that part of him. Perhaps he should thank her for that…
“They yearn to be relevant once more,” Damien snarled, fully realizing they were trying to use him to further their own agenda. “And so they target the one person that can make them so. But what they fail to realize is that by coming after me, they’ve simply sealed their own fate. So let them do their worst, Jerika; let them try to “burn this world down”. Because in case you haven’t been paying attention, I don’t burn easy.”
Damien turned back around, his hands rubbing over the now cool metal, feeling the rigged edges under his fingertips, tracing over each imperfection. He went back to work on his project, next setting the leather straps into place.
“Enough about the Left Hand,” Damien declared, his focus on the task at hand. “Let’s talk about an actual threat for a change; let’s talk about Jessie Lee. Here’s a woman that dethroned Amelia Hearts of her Horrorcore Championship and then, a week later, successfully defended it against seven other people at Danger Zone. Now I’ve heard all the chatter about how controversial her victory was; how she used Jin’s blood to eliminate Sora and Arcana…”
Damien hesitated a moment, the mention of HER name bringing him back to a place in his mind he’d rather not visit; not now, not ever.
“Sometimes it doesn’t matter how you win, only that you do,” Damien shrugged his shoulders. “I have no doubt that Jessie Lee will bring everything she has this Tuesday night; because she’s someone who fights until the bitter end. I respect that and I respect her; but Jessie… don’t mistake my admiration for you and all that you’ve accomplished as weakness. If anything, it means you’ve caught my full attention; means that I need to push myself to find a way to, somehow, stop the Aussie Assault! Champion vs. Champion; we represent the best of what Legacy has to offer. But I’m at the top of this mountain Jessie and if you want to reach the summit, you’re going to need more than just a few tricks to beat me. On Tuesday night, one way or another, you will ‘Embrace the Darkness’.”
Damien looked over the finished product, smiling in delight. It wasn’t perfect, not like it would be had a professional done it; but it represented all that he stood for. Unlike Cerise, who had everything handed to her on a silver platter, he needed to scratch and claw his way through the darkness. And with his very own battle-worn hands, he had crafted the perfect representation of just what it had taken for him to get to this point in his career; for the countless times he had bled at the hands of his enemies – this was his Legacy now!
“You know….” Damien started, grabbing his newly re-forged title belt and hoisting it up onto his shoulder. “Not to dwell on the whole, ‘friend stabbing me in the back’ thing, but there is one thing that Cerise said at Danger Zone that I just can’t seem to get out of my head…”
He leaned closer towards the fire, feeling the heat rising to meet his face. His eyes seemed to match the intensity of the blaze, practically turning a shade of red.
“She said, ‘consider this my baptism by fire’,” Damien laughed, as if he was keen to some inside joke. “Well… my dear ‘friend’… you’re about to find out what happens when you play with fire.”
A sadistic smirk crept across Damien’s lips before, suddenly, the flames from the forge went out and all was left in darkness, the smoke filling up the room. Jerika and the cameraman tried to locate the Legacy Heavyweight Champion but were unable to do so amidst the dense haze.
“Remember Cerise; there can never be order…” Damien’s deep voice cut through the obscurity, seemingly resonating all around them. “Only Khaos… on behalf of the dark!”
Damien’s mocking laughter can be heard as the cameraman lets out a high-pitched “yelp”. The expensive piece of equipment slips off the his shoulder, crashes to the ground, and the visual feed cuts to static as the last thing that can be heard is the sound of heavy footsteps running away.