In the sewers, the scrappers part 2
What ensued
will remain unknown for twenty-seven years, until a man claiming to
be Shadow-Step was rescued, by an inter-dimensional team trying to
find a path from Earth to the Jupiter orbital station. The then aged
scrapper, had been found wandering the wasteland dimension, talking
to himself in a strange language. It took several months of rehabilitation
for him to be able to communicate once more in English. He told an
incredible tale of adventures, where he had found himself cast away
from earth after closing down the Alankis portal, saving humanity
from an invasion force by condemning himself to exile.
When Envoy
of Shadows steeped across that bridge, bloody murder occurred for
the scrappers, the first to die would be Silver Girl. While rushing
headlong into the fight, she was grabbed by the nine feet tall beast
and felt the sharp teeth of the monster bite into her ribcage. The
bones gave easily under the powerful jaws, and blood flowed from her
freely. Envoy of Shadows would use her as a club to fend off the others
that were attacking him. Like a wet piece of steak, he swung her about,
striking blindly with the poor girl, the beast mostly hit the walls
and the floors. Silver Girl died well before Envoys of Shadows had
let go of her, a broken heap of human flesh and bones, throw away
with disdain by her murderer.
Followed next Sir Langley, whom while
attempting to free the poor Silver Girl from her fate, found his skull
crushed into a cement wall by a muscular arm. The sound his head made
when it was forced with great strength into the floor, apparently
was close to that of a pumpkin being dropped from a rooftop. Feet
dangling in the air, as the Envoy of Shadows used his free arm to
shove the man towards the floor, face first and eyes wide. He would
twitch there on bridge for a few seconds before breath left his body
forever.
The battle was joined by the scrappers team, whom tried all
that they could to stop the Circle Of Thorns beast, but to no avail.
The red glowing ball of force hovering above its shoulder had turned
all of their strengths into weaknesses, leaving them opened to the
murderous rampage of the monster. One by one, they all fell in gruesome
fashions, screaming for mercy as they died. Xanthion, in a desperate,
used a metal bar from the bridge railing to fend off the Envoy, and
for a while, the wind seemed to turn. The fight between the leader
of the scrappers and the evil monster took on epic proportions as
they both held their ground on the bridge. Blow for blow, they refused
to budge. But alas, Xanthion, weakened by the magical device accompanying
the beast, fell too.
When all the scrappers were down, dying and praying
for kinder and gentler realms, Xanthion, Shadow-Step and Cabaret remained
fighting. Shadow-Step told of how he knocked unconscious the blaster
at the very last minute before Xanthion fell. Sneaking behind her,
he punched her lights out in the hopes the Envoy of Shadows would
ignore her limp form once it came for him. AS her shape fell to the
floor, he look onto the bridge, at the beast raising high above its
head the bloodied and broken form of Xanthion. With a desperate look
on his face, the leader of the scrappers had pulled out the detonator,
and in a last breath’s effort, screamed to Shadow-Step:
“Close that
god damned forsaken door, you hear me, close it!”
Then, Envoy of Shadows
proceeded to throw Xanthion in the chasm below the bridge, impaling
the scrappers on the metal rods that protruded twenty feet below.
The same moment that his body was pierced by the rods, Xanthion pressed
the switch. The entire room engulfed itself in flames, and the force
of the explosion sent Shadow-Step flying backwards with flames already
licking his feet, he flew through the dimensional door, to land without
grace, next to the activation pedestal, which nestled the crystal.
Standing up right away, he looked horrified through the shimmering
blue, watery surface of the portal, and tried to run back through
it. Only to be met by a force wall that sent him crashing on his behind.
He was now stuck into this unknown dimension, unable to return to
earth through this passage.
But, he couldn’t bring himself to close
the portal, that is, until he saw that the cave in on the other side
of the portal had begun to be tossed away by a huge force. Envoy of
Shadows was digging his way back to the portal, to ensure that it
would remain open. Debating within himself about the options left,
his train of thoughts were broken by the burnt shape, and yet still
alive, of Cabaret. She was standing on earth’s side, skin burnt and
hair melted away, pounding with a fist on the magical door. He couldn’t
hear what she was saying, no sound came through the door, but the
look in her eyes told a story of pain and fear. She looked over her
shoulder, and kept yelling something he couldn’t read on her charred
lips. Soon after, the rubble created by the cave in of the explosion,
let through a huge bestial arm, and more of the remaining rubbles
was moved away. Cabaret screamed, and Shadow-Step looked on in horror,
as Envoy of Shadows emerged from the debris, burnt and bloodied.
Taking
a few steps back from the portal, Shadow-Step looked on at the horrific
spectacle he was unable to stop. The beast ripped apart Cabaret, tore
up her lovely shape in many pieces and fed itself on her remains,
which began to regenerate the monster. Shadow-Step understood at that
moment that there was no stopping the Envoy of Shadows, understood
the importance of his presence in the team, there was no randomness
to the universe. Only a black heart could close the portal, only he
was left to do it. He turned around as the monster was walking towards
the portal. The beast reached in with his massive arm, and was about
to snatch Shadow-Step away from the energy crystal, when the scrapper
shattered it. The portal closed, cutting clean off the forearm of
Envoy of Shadows, leaving it to fall on the rocky floor of the dimension,
inert and bleeding.
Twenty-seven years, Shadow-Step would look for
a way back to earth, twenty-seven long years of wandering and adventures.
When the exploration team found him, the scrapper fed himself on raw
meet from fresh kills of what he referred to as “fire lizards”. Back
amongst human, he stayed within civilization a few months, before
asking to be returned to the dimension where he had been a prisoner
for so long. The deadliest scrapper Paragon city had ever known, the
unlikely hero he had become, couldn’t find a place to fit in anymore.
Of all the words to be used to describe him, this one would now apply
until his death: Alien.