Even Mortals Have Uses to Gods ((Tag: Xenon))

Subject: Even Mortals Have Uses to Gods ((Tag: Xenon)) Wed Sep 16, 2009 10:50 am

It was the afternoon. The sun was set high into the sky, shining down upon all life with intense, cruel rays of unrelenting heat and UV radiation. There were barely any white, wispy clouds for cover in the dominant blue, vast sky. The birds had ceased fluttering and the trees and grass did not sway for there was no wind to offer a cool breeze, a gentle zephyr to lessen the staggering temperature.

It was a quiet day, and Natron found it favorable.

"Eeeeeeehhhh..." He groaned through the silence, his worn feet planted firmly upon the cool green grass as he studied the open land from afar with his eagle-visioned eyes. They were in a meadow. It was open, surrounded by a wide ring of trees and to the north...there was an expanse of mountains with snowy caps. He could make them by nightfall, but with this slave girl situated over his shoulders it would take longer.

"Girl..." Natron said with a rasp, picking the girl back up and setting her down before his grand person. She was still frozen as only her eyes seemed to make any movement. "Girl..." He said once again, grasping his staff with authority. "Tell me what you know of my enemies. Why you dress the way you do. Why you serve them. Tell me faithfully and I, Natron, may just see it fitting that you are released without harm."

Of course, if he released her she could just as well tell his foes that he was upon this planet but such was not a concern for him. He was a god, and gods did not fear mortals.

"Tell me all that you know."

"I don't like this!" Xenon did not approve of the situation one bit as she was set down like a decorative garden gnome in front of Natron's person, even if the surroundings were picturesque, albeit stiffly and hot. Did that sun never relent in its light-waves of radiation?

"Girl..." Natron said with a rasp, picking the girl back up and setting her down before his grand person. She was still frozen as only her eyes seemed to make any movement. "Girl..." He said once again, grasping his staff with authority. "Tell me what you know of my enemies. Why you dress the way you do. Why you serve them. Tell me faithfully and I, Natron, may just see it fitting that you are released without harm."

Pffft, like he'd release her without harm. OH there would be PLENTY OF HARM. Xenon wasn't so gullible as to believe false words and petty promises coming from the mouth of her abductor. There was ALWAYS harm, if not from him, from Zurg himself! Obviously as this crusty old cretin despised his kind, it is safe to assume that Zurg would hate his, therefore if Xenon spilled the beans or not she was frame broiled both ways.

"...I should have baked cookies instead" she cursed her impulse to make a fresh fruit pie. Or she should have gone to the grocer's and picked up berries from there, but noooooo, she had to make it special.

And then Xenon's heart fluttered with hope as she suddenly felt her limbs being back under her control, as Natron had lifted the binding blue energy off of her person. So what did Xenon do with this newfound freedom? Spill any and all secrets about Zurg? Blather like an idiot trying to avoid the topic at hand? No. Instead she RAN; bolting like a goat down a cliff side, or in this case, towards the trees that encircled the closure.

Unfortunately for her, the plan was doomed from the start as Natron somehow appeared directly in front of her causing her to collide into his stoic form, without him so much as flinching as she was sent back falling towards the ground. "Eheheh, that was a stupid move on my part, hm?" she tried unsuccessfully to make light of the situation.

In the words of Hellboy....Awwww crap.

Even before the girl took her first breath of freedom, Natron could see that she would inevitably...run.

And run she did.

"Eeeeeeeh....see how the mortals return our kindness, Ahksunu'ma." The old Cosmic ruler spoke, shaking his massive ancient head in dismay. It was so predictable. Give the lesser their rights and they abuse it, time and time again. So Natron did what he did best: he abused Time once more and simply hobbled over to where the girl would run next. It took him a good few minutes, as his legs were indeed older than this place itself, but he reached it nonetheless.

With a wave of his hand, the world resumed its cadence and just as he predicted, the girl thumped into him. He barely felt the impact.

"I asked you kindly, and like all gods, I gave you one chance..." He grumbled, holding up a decrepit finger. "...but you proved to be ungrateful, so now your god must request atonement on your behalf as payment to your arrogance."

And with that, Natron clutched his beloved staff and fired a searing blue tendril of raw energy at the girl, for after all; he was not known as Natron, the Merciful.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Xenon's scream tore through her throat, piercing the air as the tendrils of blue energy electrocuted her system, sending waves of painful stimuli in such rapid response that all her other senses shut down one by one. Her eyes were stinging with tears, and she screamed pushing her vocal chords to the limits.

Vision?
Gone.
Hearing?
Gone.
Sense of smell?
Soooooo gone.

Natron continued to let his staff torture her frame, sending her into wild convulsions just moments prior to causing death, ceasing the assault just before death would free her of his wrath.

She lay in a crumpled heap, the grass brushing against the sides of her body, as it took a while for her system to recover. She tried pushing up against the ground on shaky limbs, only to fall repeatedly back onto the grass, the cool grass, the excruciating pain still lingering in her extremities, like fire was eating away at her very nerves.

"Puh-please, no more..." her voice came out as ragged as she looked, the words slurred and soft as it was a stuggle to regain use of communication skills after having an epilectic fit.

"No more..."

Natron retracted his scythe from the girl's meek, crumpled frame and took delight in seeing the wisps of raw power leave her body like smoking tendrils.

"Then tell your god, I Natron, all that you know of his enemies." The ancient mummy grumbled. "If you do not, then you will know what it means to suffer for an eternity."

And Natron could easily see to that.

Easily.

Last edited by Xenon on Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:28 pm; edited 1 time in total

Xenon still struggled to stand, and once again fell slumped onto the ground, spitting grass out of her mouth--wait, grass wasn't supposed to be red. "Oh this is just dandy! I'm coughing out blood," she choked, trying to clear her air passages of the red substance.

Hope Natron is happy, that vile sadistic creature--and not the good kind like Zurg who don't live up to that title.

"Her shoulders shook as she brough her arms under her chest, intent on pushing her body to the side so she rolled onto her back, focusing on breathing in and out, in and out, staring at the blue sky--wow, it was a clear day. A clear beautiful day.
And she was stuck with Mr. Sunshine over there.

"Then let me suffer, for an...eternity," she managed to grimace at Natron, propping her back up as her arms were straight behind her, graspign tightly at the warm grass, all while throwing the old cretin a sharp accusatory glance. "Friends don't betray friends--if you had any people skills at all, you would know that."

"Ugh! Why do I choose to reason with you mortals when you clearly cannot comprehend a god's agenda."

Natron did not disappoint in his promise to make the girl suffer and brought his scythe back down. The blue energy shrieked out and curled around the girl, but this time...it did not pain her only externally. Instead, the energy found itself inside the girl and dug into her mental fortress.

"If you will not willingly tell me your secrets and tales, then I will dig them out of your mind and MAKE you unwillingly talk."

And so the interrogation began.

SWEET MOTHER OF VENUS THE PAIN, THE PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN

Xenon was it agony, as the tentrils worked their way through her organs, causing some extensive damage. She'd be bedridden for weeks, if she was able to get out of this situation alive, and the probability of that was not in her favor.

Xenon was in so much agony that her eyes grew distant, and it appeared that she was watching a movie on her whole unfortunate life. "Come on, couldn't we have watched a better movie?" she shook her fist at natron, or at least she would if she had any control over her voluntary muscles. It was a struggle to maintain that heartbeat.

So she sat back and through cold eyes--or was that Natron's eyes--he broke through her walls of resistance and spotted her interesting past of crime and squalor, her father's murdered body, that sense of being all alone, then shifting towards clips of important scenes like Vartkes exploiting children, Xenon struggling to learn and teach herself while no one was watching, and finally breaking free with the indirect help of Zurg, cuasing her to feel a strong bond towards him, and grow to love him as a friend, and at times treated him like a child.

She really cared for him, and that made Natron feel sick, causing him to further increase the pain out of disgust.

Natron sped through the girl's short, bittersweet life. None of her pains, her trials, her anguish meant anything to him. That was her mortal life to be fulfilled and lead. But one thing he did know was reassured: mortals needed gods to rule over them lest they run rampant and cause their own decay from the inside.

"Show me my enemies..." He muttered, twisting the staff tightly. While patience was something he could confide an eternity in, Natron had rather not spend it searching inside this girl.

And then things proved interesting.

His enemy had yet again showed a flaw; a weakness! This sign of charity, however indiscreet, had set this girl loose from her destined bonds and allowed her to become a free, radical agent in the Cosmos. Nothing more than an embodiment of Chaos! Natron felt his mental talons dig deeper, ravenous even in his hunger, and found exactly what he had been searching for.

This girl had befriended his enemy, as he suspected, and knew many things. Where they lived, what they held in their fortress, codes and technological data....and.....strange....Natron could only see one; the same one again and again. Where there not more for him to crush and destroy? Perhaps they were in hiding.

And rightfully so!

"I see clearly now. You are their friend! Their ally." The old mummy gritted his worn teeth and mentally increased the torture. "You serve them, do you. Then you must know more." He pressed.

"Hahaha ha," Xenon had lost it. Seriously. Her weak laugh roase from her partially crushed lungs. This Natron...he was not a god--not nevessarily your standard mortal--but no god. Those dieties were supposed to have class, morals, respect if they so existed but this jester? He was an entertainer at best preserved against the ravage of time, but he would crumble eventually. No one was impervious to the wrath of the cosmos.

"You arrogant coward," her grin disappeared as she stared straight through what she saw as a lesser being. Yeah, let him see THAT thought process in her mind. If she was screwed anyway for being affiliated with Zurg, why not deflate his ego a bit before she went? Just by looking into the sadism in his eyes, she could deduce there was not one iota of mercy within that person.

So she continued, "You'll never be half as great as Zurg is, you Chlorm wanabe.
Because those blue tendrils of painful light remindedher sharply of those beams the Chlorm used to keep their "animals" in line.

And so Natron could not further get information out of her head, she set up a reinforced mental block....of HUGS. It was comprised of millions of memories of hugging Red, and Zurg, random cute fuzzy creatures, and other beings of Portal Breach. Let him see THOSE images. Maybe he'd learn a thing or two.

"Arrogant, yes but a coward, no." Natron calmly replied, lowering his scythe to produce another burst of energy to snake over the girl and penetrate her very existence.

As he delved and delved, he found that the girl had set up a barrier of warm, passionate feelings towards friends and those she cared about. How foolish. Now Natron could see his enemy's companions: this girl, the red man, and even more denizens of this world. He scoured her mind for each of them and soaked up whatever information she had thought to hide.

"Hellboy...Liz Sherman...Bumblebee...Arrow...Dr. Doom...XR, Mira Nova, Booster, Lightyear...Xenon..." He said slowly, lowering his sadistic eyes down to the girl who he sought to break. "You, Xenon, friend of my enemies, have served your god well; even IF you do not choose to be subservient."

Thanks to her, he now knew who were major players and who were not. He knew of Portal-X, Portal-Z, and the like. Nergal, Swindle, Keaton. Everything.

"You have served me well."

Natron released the girl from his power and let his weapon brace himself up like a cane.

"But you still have one purpose I have yet to fulfill...." He brought down a taloned hand, hungering for her young life.

Unfortunately she didn't remember to think of an annoying spacing song to get it stuck in his head. Darn it! It would have been hilarious.
"Hum hum da-da-da-de, you are a space pirate!"
Ahhh, the classics.

But then Xenon saw Natron loom in closer towards her, speaking some foreboding words of one use left with his talons drawn. "You, you a-a-aren't going to kill me are you?" Xenon asked the moronic question. Of course he was going to kill her, or harm her in some way. But for some odd reason she still clung onto the hope that she could get out of this alive.

"BUT I'M STILL USEFUL BESIDES WHATEVER YOU'RE GOING TO USE ME FOR" she tried to get the message across, for if she was killed here, no one would be able to warn Zurg! The girl shuddered as she recalled how Natron's energy wormed its way through her mind and towards memories she couldn't stop him from seeing. Like she betrayed Zurg--but it wasn't her fault!

Still...she was responsible for giving the old geezer information about everyone on portal breach, so she should at least warn her friends before the inevitable visit from Natron over here. Especially Zurg, as this strange old man seemed to have a personal vendetta against him.

He wasn't Mr. Sunshine after all, unless you call the old bag of bones that in a sarcastic voice.