Participants:
Scene Title | Knock Down, Drag Out> |
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Synopsis | Norman White comes looking for vengeance for what happened on Coney Island. |
Date | October 16, 2009 |
Clay Munson
He didn't really look like a Clay. Or a Munson. He would have fit the profile of a Butch or maybe a Dirk. But not Clay. It's the name that now rests on Shard's forearm. Vincent presses one finger against dark ink laid against dark skin. Three names. And who knows how many other names deserve to be scarred onto his arm. But he doesn't have enough room on his arm for all of them, much to his chagrin.
Better known as The Crucible, Clay Munson joined two other names. John Wentworth and Wanda Wentworth. Shard was responsible for their deaths, and the fact that those who died because of the Municipal Building died because of him. Norman White should be the fourth name forever immortalized in a tatto on his arm. But there is only a black space. A few inches of black skin that symbolize all the lives lost that terrible night. And it was his fault.
A fist slaps into the mud powerfully accompanied with a feral cry. After overly inspecting his newest tattoo it was time to welcome the overwhelming depths of guilt that hovered just above his head. Threatening to descend upon him with merciless wrath.
Rain trickles down along his head, dripping down his chin and ultimately onto his hooded sweatshirt. The rain is letting up gradually, revealing that the sun will be setting soon. He should be going, he should be getting to the Shipment. He shouldn't be late for that.
But for some reason Shard can't help but remain on his knees. After finally getting the tattoo, King wandered aimlessly until finding complete solitude. A mostly abandoned neighborhood with a large field that might have at one point been a park or some type of soccer field. But now there is more mud than anything that resembles grass. A weathered and faded soccer goal remains abandoned at the far end of the field.
A sob escapes Shard's lips as he remains on his knees and bent over. "Jesus… Jesus Christ you've got to help me. I." A deep breath is taken. "I don't think I can do this anymore. Not on my own. I need you. God, I need you. Please. Please come help me."
"Lord ain't listening to your prayers, Shard." The voice comes out of nowhere along with the crackle-pop of sparkling pinkish red lights behind the kneeling man. The ground suddenly turns to soup beneath Shard, sucking him down like quicksand in the moment it takes for a large boot to strike him in the midsection. Send tumbling from side to side, Shard bounces across the harder portions of the ground, leading a muddy wake behind him. When blurry visions focuses on what hit him, all he sees are two blurry silhouettes.
One of them, far larger than the other, is Norman White. Standing in the middle of the packed earth parking lot behind the long since abandoned Pallaisades Bowling Alley. Only a few derelict cars missing tires bear witness to the sight of that feral looking man, his long denim jacket mottled with dirt and tears in the fabric.
The smaller figure behind Norman, the tall and thin Kris looks on with an apologetic expression as he takes a step back, moments before tendrils of earth rise up and wrap around Shard's throat, squeezing as he's drawn towards the sludge-like ground softened by Norman's terrakinetic manipulation. "You're a son of a bitch!" White roars, storming across the quicksand as if it were concrete; the soupy earth hardening beneath each footfall and softening when he rises up off of it. "You're a soon to be dead son of a bitch."
A loud roar is let out, like a bear caught surprise by a rifle. Initially Vincent's arms flail out desperately as his back slaps against the mud. His eyes go wide at the sudden ambush. How did they— What did— It doesn't matter. Norman found him, maybe Norman always knew where he was, and just now grew tired of him. And out here, no cell phone, no back up, nothing. Just him. And God. "Jesus…" The prayer continues despite the sudden rampage White is unleashing on the man. "Jesus I know.." A gasp as Shard struggles to bring in breath. "Please God, give me…" A ragged breath is drawn with the tendrils tightening around his neck.
A deep breath is taken, fear. He sniffs deeply as if taking something in, bringing it all in. Arms fly up, slapping against the sludge that is drawing him in. His head rises, going against the strangling arms of earth, choking himself even more. But eventually, Shard breaks through, bringing his arms up powerfully to push himself up to one knee in the slude. A finger is pointed at Kris wildly. "You can stop this! White's revolution is going to kill everyone. Your old friends your family. You see what he did!" That same finger waves in the vague direction of the municipal building. "Help me!"
"Shut up!" Norman howls, the ground rumbling at his anger as a pillar of Rock rises u at an awkward angle from the ground, like a batterimg ram that collides with Shard from behind, sending him tumbling forward towards the giant of a man. Norman raises a hand up into the air, forming a flat wall of hardened bud and earth that Shard collides into, only to have it crumble away a second later as a lashing serpent of wet earth slides up and wraps around Shard's waist, slinging him to the side and onto the hood of one of the derelict cars. "You think he doesn't know that? One day Shard, you would've thanked me for doing this! One day when they're rounding us up one by one, shoving us into little boxes and shipping us off to death camps, you'd have begged me for my war!"
The earth ripples like the surface of an unstill pond beneath Norman's feet, and Kris takes a staggering step backwards, looking anxiously between Norman and his nemesis, his fear only makes this confrontation worse. "I have you a chance, Shard. You could'a been with me, we could'a made a difference together." The car Shard's laying across begins to buck and shudder, "you made this choice for yourself. One day, the people who survive this war are going to thank me for it, and revere the matryrs who die in its inception."
It's blurry, White's words barely register as his head bobbles against the hood of the beat up vehicle. His arm was caught in an awkward position under his body which he slowly rolls to alleviate. Blood drips form his nose, pain searing through his head. He probably has a head wound from that, but there's no time to check now. Not to mention a feeling that he would wager feels remarkably like an actual broken spine. He's practically broken right there. The only thing that keeps him ticking keeps him alive. Fear. Sucking it in desperately Shard slowly pushes himself up into a seated position. He needs more.
"You have to help me boy. I'm giving you a chance now. You're not with the good guys. You help me now." A sleeve comes up to wipe away the blood forming on his lip. "Or I'll kill you both." Vincent mutters, going to slide off the hood and deliver a glare at White. "The people who survive this war will thank you only because they're too scared of you to do anything else. If one doesn't agree with you, you make a earthquake. Is that your American Dream, White?" A step forward as he desperately tries to remain upright. "Now stop being such a pussy and fight me." His fists are raised up slowly as if he's ready to box the other man. "Or can you handle that?"
Kris tenses up, eyes wide as he swallows noisily, but that is the only noise he makes. Looking down to his feet and away from Shard, the teleporter shakes his head and mouths some form of apology, before disappearing in a crackle-pop of red and pink energy. White's head quirks to the side, a toothy smile spread from ear to ear. "The world needs fear, needs to be shaken up. If I have to scare people into action, then so goddamned be it. God chose me for this, Shard, God gave me this ability to make me realize what my mission is."
Both of White's hands curl into fists, and his eyes narrow as he brings those hands up, as if prepared to indulge shard in the fistfight, but as two gigantic masses of earth and rock vaguely shaped like fists emerge from the ground between he and Shard, it becomes obvious what Norman intends to do.
One fist swings out, and Shard's ready for it, swinging his own hand towards the giant rock mass and plowing thorugh it with the strength of too many fearful emotions that linger from Kris' presence. Shattering one of the rock hands into a useless pile of rubble, Shard advances on White inside the reach of the other stone hand, even as the ground mucks up beneath his feet.
A jab is struck clear across Norman's jaw, sending him only staggering back, instead of ripping his jaw clear off like it should have. With Kris gone, Shard can feel the strength afforded to him by his borrowed ability diminishing by the second. Rubbing his jaw, White levels his eyes down on the former rapper. "S'at all you got? Your ideas ain't so tough." Wet hands of soupy mud reach up to grab and tug at Shard's legs, once more trying to draw him into the earth.
Eyes widen slightly for just a moment. As Shard looks down at his gloved hands, one that so recently across Norman's chin. Idiot! He should have taken those off first thing. The strength is fading rapidly with Kris gone. A huge mistake. One that might cost him everything. Slowly he drops his hands to his waist. Can't make a show of taking them off, that'll give it all away. He has to touch him.
"You aren't serving God." The bleeding rapper mutters as the ground starts to draw him down. No way out of this, he's not strong enough to resist the very Earth itself. His only salvation is touching White. The parable of the woman desperately breaking through the crowd just to touch the hem of Jesus' robe runs through his mind in a blur. God. Help me It's not spoken, but it's the most passionate plea Shard has ever made to his Creator.
"I am his instrument!" White bellows as he brings up a boot and presses it to Shard's chest, forcing him down deeper into the muck and mire as now ungloved hands paw and grasp at White's leg. "Am I the only one who sees where the country is headed, and am I the only one who has the backbone to do something about it?" His foot presses down harder on Shard's chest, and the rapper continues to sink down into the mud, even as the clawing and grasping motions of his hand try and pry up the cloth of his pent-=leg to get at skin.
Norman's blue eyes narrow, and he jerks his foot back and slams his boot down atop Shard's head, knocking him onto his back in the thick mud that keeps sucking him downwards. Blinded by the mud and dirt, he paws blindly at the foot holding him in place and threatening to bury him in the earth. "I and going to show this nation how corrupt it has become!" Portions of the muck begin to harden on the edges, the soupy mix of quicksand and mud turning to something like concrete on the edges.
"I'm sorry, Shard." He can barely hear Norman now, fingers pawing and grasping at his leg before finally the tips of dark fingers sink beneath the surface, followed by several large bubbles of air that plop up from the depths. "Rest in peace, brother…" White's boot slides out of the mud before it all hardens dry around where Shard was submerged, the ground for several feet little more than a chalky white concrete coloration.
Norman takes a step back, brows furrowed, then shakes his head and begins walking away from the field. "This island you love so much, can be your tomb."