By Sh33p, CultofSh33p@aol.com
The great sequel of New Age. It'll knock your socks off. Tim Seltzer, seltzer@seltzerbooks.com
Sh33p Disclaimer: I don`t own Zoids. Consider this disclaimer valid for the whole damn story :P
Foreword:Evanescence - Lies
"WHERE AM I?!" Came the mental equivelent of a scream as a tan-skinned youth in his mid-teens shot up in a bed he didn`t even recognize as his own, sweat pouring in streams down all over his body. The vest he only barely remembered snatching was on the floor, his boots and gloves lying near it, as with his socks. For a few seconds, he was completely blind, the remains of a tunnel vision so intense that he couldn`t even see in front of himself finally giving away with blaring clarity, his mind rapidly allowing itself to process information again.
Gasping for air, his sense of smell almost choked him as the scent of blood poured through each nostril, pungent and foreboding, but there was nothing there. He was terrified, it was dark and Hell was hot, his very brain ached with a migraine that didn`t even exist and demons that couldn`t be explained were trampling about at the edge of his newly increased vision.
But there was still nothing there.
Bound at every limb by my shackles of fear
"... H... Home?" He managed to wheeze out, realizing how hoarse his voice was from screaming, and how stale and dry his throat felt along with it. Instinctively, a hand came up and pressed to his neck, but also instinctively, and even a bit fiercely, he threw it back, his own hand flying away as he shot up again, this time moving out of bed and landing on both feet with the terrified posture of a holocaust victim.
Except he wasn`t a victim. He had been the one who carried it out.
An already fragile psyche strained to bear that load, the weight of his actions threatening to break his legs out from under him and implode his taut shoulders right into the base of his neck from stress, the urge to scream rising up from within, but it was quickly supressed.
Jamie Hameros was good at supressing his emotions. Too good. They were threatening to blow up in his face like a powder keg after being doused in gasoline and shot with an incendiary round the size of his fist.
Sealed with lies through so many tears
His body trembled from cold that wasn`t even there, and balance that had formerly been so undeniably perfect in the form of the Wild Eagle gave out, leaving him to blindly falter in the dark of some sort of prison that looked like a bedroom, smacking face first into a wall before falling over onto his backside and gritting his teeth at the pain.
It took a few seconds longer before recognition, even more terrifying than the demons that had been gnawing away at what fragments remained of his sanity, dawned upon him, leaving him to realize the conclusion that this wasn`t someone else`s room and it wasn`t a prison.
This was Jamie`s own bedroom.
He was home.
He had just carelessly, knowingly murdered over a thousand people.
By his own hands.
Lost from within, pursuing the end
The shaking that had first begun when he had lost balance and succumbed to a frigid cold that had never even been there returned, full-force, bringing with it a prolonged, dog-like whimper. Eyes that were ordinarily closer to polished, glass-like concrete suddenly turned a watery gray, and a face that was already dampened by a humidity that didn`t exist suddenly gained two new streaks running down the sides.
An expression of pure, irrational fear became one of freezing, computeresque logic, so horrified that it bordered on resembling something out of an over acted, B-rated horror movie that was too convincing for its own good. The seconds trickled by, and with them, every ounce of composure chipped away, piece by bloody, agonized piece.
I fight for the chance to be lied to again
"Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!" He managed to shakily sound out in the otherwise silent atmosphere of the darkened bedroom, glaring balefully in every direction he could think of as everything flooded back to him, finally leading itself to a panicked, emotion-driven utterance, along with a flimsy, paper weight resolve to carry it out.
"I need a shower," he said to himself, as if it might wash the guilt away.
With only an obsessive habit of collecting a change of clothes to slow him down, Jamie almost ran out of his bedroom, shutting the door so loudly that, if not for the seeming emptiness of the second floor of his family`s home, he probably would have roused someone awake.
But he didn`t. The Hameros home had been built so sturdily and thickly that sound didn`t exactly travel very well through its walls and doors, though the jolt of the door slamming into place was almost enough to shock him into having a seizure.
You will never be strong enough
A speed walk into the bathroom later, another door slammed and a light flicked on so brightly that it would have probably hurt his eyes if he were actually paying attention. As it stood though, everything was hurting right now. His very soul was hurting and there was a pit in his chest that was so deep, it threatened to suck he and everything around him into an infinite blackness that he didn`t even want to comprehend, but could in terrifying clarity.
By the time the shower had flipped on, Hameros had practically ripped his jumpsuit off, following suit with the pair of briefs he had been wearing for days now, flinging them carelessly out of the way and almost yanking the shower door off the hinge in his haste to get inside, slamming it right back into place the moment he was within, the water already running in the process.
Somewhere along the way, he had grabbed a rag.
Almost instantly, he had begun scrubbing with it. No soap, just scrubbing.
You will never be good enough
"I killed all of them..."
And he kept scrubbing.
You were never conceived in love
"I KILLED ALL OF THEM!"
And he kept scrubbing after that, as if the blood that wasn`t even there was going to miraculously start to somehow fade away.
He kept scrubbing until his skin went raw from where the rag was rubbing so tightly over the bare, inner side of his forearm, and he kept scrubbing still, even as the water kept hitting his chest with the force of an angry pressure hose, cold steam blowing up from where each drop hit him.
You will not rise above
Still, he kept scrubbing.
The white rag started to turn red, tanned skin began to fade to a near-matching, bruised tint and his vision began to blur from not having blinked in... Minutes? He had lost track of time so badly that he couldn`t even tell how long he had been unintentionally trying to mutilate himself, but then, it all stopped.
Just. Like. That.
They'll never see
"That`s enough, Jamie."
The voice was his, but it wasn`t. His body was his, but it wasn`t. This house was his, but it wasn`t.
"Lemmealone. Justfuckoffman, GO AWAY!"
Persistence embodied. The voice continued, blotting out the sound of the shower.
"This isn`t helping," it said, as calm and soothing as the soft light of the morning sun.
I'll never be
"Getawayfromme, you justwannakillme... YOU JUST WANNA KILL ME!!!" He screamed in accusation, even as the feeling began to seep out of him, the wound on his arm slowly beginning to fade, even as what little control he had on himself broke down, along with his legs.
The shower floor was hard, made of a rough tile intended to provide grip. He was lucky he didn`t bang his head against one of the two in-shower seats that had been built into the cozy, somewhat dimmed cove that the shower itself had been installed in. It bruised his knees though, and it hurt his feet to scrape along the floor on the way down, the grip on that still-reddish rag tightening until his knuckles started to go numb.
I'll struggle on and on to feed this hunger
"You just want me... To kill you... Just like they did..." He muttered out finally, resting his forehead against the seat in front of him. He was still crying, still in pain, but now he was getting angry as well.
Anger in Jamie`s current condition wasn`t just detrimental, it was enough that it might drive him back over the edge again. Will knew that, part of him hazarded a guess that some part of Jamie`s fractured, rational mind would`ve realized it at some point if he had paused to think about it, but that obviously wasn`t going to be happening anytime soon.
Burning deep inside of me
With growing, constant force, Will tried to wrest control from the other personality, an effort that proved little more than a practice in absolute futility, leaving him pushed back bit by bit as the other fought for control like a rabid animal.
Wounds returned. The one on his arm started to reappear first, as did the bruises along his knees, each of them fighting for existence as the personality they belonged to struggled to keep a grip, the numbness in the knuckles persisting, providing an anchor. Jamie focused, if not consciously then out of pure spite and hatred, the anger he felt forcing a shift in the flow of his feelings, from self-destructive to raw survival instinct.
It was enough to, figuratively speaking, push the Wild Eagle back. On the mental plane, what would have felt to most people like a severe headache took on the appearance of two duelling figures in a sky of infinite, clouded darkness, taking on the appearance of flowing oil mixed with blue ink, no visible ground in sight, just infinity.
Around them flew countless random thoughts and memories. Doorways, windows, a few Zoid parts, pictures and sounds that had shape and substance, bolts of color and tortured thought. Each was a sharp contrast to the other, one outlined a vivid, almost terrifying red, the other a dulled shape of unimpressive blue, each dressed in the same flight uniform that they had been wearing for the past days, each differing from the other even in their expressions.
What would have felt like a headache to most was embodied in a violent assault of fists against the defensive blue figure. It was the avatar representing the Wild Eagle that was taking the abuse, and the avatar of the murderously enraged Jamie Hameros that was dishing it out.
Fists flew at the speed of thought, the figure in blue rocked back a bit more with every blow it failed to fully block, forearms thrown up in a futile gesture of defense, head lowered behind then, legs drawn up to the chest and body curled forward.
"YOU WANTED TO DIE?!" Jamie screamed in thought, lashing out again so hard that Will snapped back, his defenses shattering and an arm flying freely from his attempt at blocking, legs spreading and his other arm flailing about as he sought to maintain his sense of self. It was similar to trying to keep a drop of color from dissolving into a glass of water.
"THEN I`LL KILL YOU!" The normally weaker personality exclaimed, watching his other half tumbling through their mutual abyss. All things considered, if he hadn`t been over the edge a few seconds earlier, he was now.
"Something`s wrong," the Wild Eagle commented to himself, though with his current situation, that was almost like telling a death row inmate that he was going to die. "He`s never this strong..."
Thought became action, Hameros lunged, Edgars willed himself to drop out of the way, taking advantage of the nature of their warzone to dodge out of the way and beat a hasty, pointless retreat.
Like a hungry, screaming raptor, Jamie swooped back, only to blink out of existence and appear in front of the other personality, which snapped into action reflexively. Jamie might have been stronger at present, but Will was still the most dangerous, lashing out and tagging the other across one eye with a boxing jab, only to pull back and follow up with an uppercut to the stomach.
Jamie rocked back, physically beginning to manifest a black eye as the struggle continued. With the speed of angry, emotion-driven thought, he attacked again, charging forward and practically stabbing a fist into Will`s stomach with enough force that the blue outline threw off violent sparks as a result, each of which faded into oblivion as soon as they entered the abyss, no longer held in place.
A hole sat within the second personality`s midsection for several seconds before the already thin blue outline thinned a bit more, covering it and filling the wound. Almost like a wolf, Jamie grinned, both in reality and in the realm of thought, watching his other side float back in pain that didn`t even exist.
"How does it feel to be on the losing end for once, you fucking PRICK?!" The red avatar demanded, though the blue one only grit his imagined teeth in reply.
"How does the black eye feel? What about the knees? Or maybe your knuckles?" Will asked, throwing questions out in the hopes that it might distract Jamie too much to keep focused on the battle that was carrying on in their psyche. "How does it feel to know that you`ve murdered as many people as me?" He asked after several nanoseconds.
Wrong question, worse answer.
"SHUT UP!!!" The other screamed, both in the abyss and in reality, so loudly in the former that the many random thoughts in the background were thrown back and out of sight, the black and blue, inkish space around them rippling violently from the nonexistent shockwave. It was only a precursor though, and a whip-like crack echoed through the brain they shared, leaving the Wild Eagle to fall back, now bearing a welt that lined up one side of his shoulder and continued down along his chest to his belly button, sparks flying once again as Jamie fully appeared in front of him, his avatar blurred and stretched to cover the distance between the two like an image viewed through a funhouse mirror, one hand swept down and out in the posture of a karate chop.
Will tumbled back again, slapping into a mental image and vanishing within, only to continue down and slap into the side of a distorted mountain, viewed so closely that it had a pixel effect to it. On impact, more sparks flew, the image itself shook a bit and the mental pixels of the mountainside briefly tore away, only to flood back into place without error. Will froze though, trying to keep his bearings and looking up at the hole he had flown in through.
"He really is trying to kill me..." The Wild Eagle finally realized, having been delayed in doing so for the simple reason that he had been trying to avoid dying in the first place, though Jamie`s usual non-violent nature made it seem hard for him to wrap his own mind around.
But through my tears breaks a blinding light
Gritting his teeth for the umpteenth time in the umpteenth nano-hour that he and Jamie had been slugging it out, Will stood up, taking a look at his body and noting that his outline had faded again. Where once, it had been as bright as Jamie`s own, now?
Now it was literally just an outline and a bit of a glow. It was barely even there. That was not a good sign.
"Fuck."
Birthing a dawn to this endless night
No surrender though, and no retreat either, even if things were going downhill and straight to Hell, Jamie wasn`t going to give his alter-ego even the slimmest chance of recovery.
"Here we go ag-" He was cut off as the image-based world of the thought surrounding him suddenly broke into thousands of pixelated bits and pieces, each one shocked further and further apart by the blistering jolts of red-tinted electricity, all of it emanating from a single point visible in the nonexistent distance of the abyss.
"Did you really think I`d let you get the chance to catch your breath?" Jamie asked, his eyes practically replaced by twin red glows, each seeming more malignant with every blink he took in the real world.
"The thought did cross my mind," Will shot back, trying, if nothing else, to gain a few seconds of reprieve from his other self.
"YOU DON`T HAVE A MIND!" Jamie screamed in the physical world, so loudly that his words practically snapped into the Wild Eagle like the recoil from a handgun. "You`re a spare THOUGHT that I let develop too much! A fucking daydream that got carried away!" He yelled out afterward in thought, watching the other personality clench his fists in anger.
"You little son of a bitch," Will finally threw back, his entire, thought-formed body tensing up and leaning forward as if he actually had ground to stand upon. "I gave up the only thing in my life that had any fucking meaning to me, just so that you could be happy without making the mistake of your life!" He added irately, still as tense as before, though that outline was still just as faint.
Then, something changed.
"You`re nothing..." Jamie muttered, his resolve starting to instantly crack as he envisioned the Wild Eagle straightening up, a look of resigned disgust on his face. The look of resolve and defiance, Jamie could`ve taken those in stride in his former mindset, but the level of outright disgust - shown without contempt, without any other emotion but calm - was enough to almost level him.
Almost return him to rational thought.
Almost.
Almost.
"If I`m nothing, Jamie," Will began as the abyss began to settle. It was slow at first, pixel by imagined pixel, wave of color by thought-generated wave of color. Ground formed beneath the feet of the Wild Eagle, though Jamie was left hovering in air that didn`t exist, a blue sky shifting and fading steadily into view, filled with only sparse, ivory-tinted clouds and a golden, lively sun.
Arms outstretched, awaiting me
And then Will continued, grass springing from beneath his feet as a single tree began to form at the very top of the hill, so close that the blue personality was practically braced against it, the branches themselves arcing out until they took the appearance of green fathered, brown boned wings, the sun at his back giving some sort of eerie halo as the two personalities glared at each other.
And then even the disgust faded to nothing but apathetic resignation.
"Go ahead and do what you want."
Dying rage clawed its way back to life with a ferocity unmatched, this final act of resolve shattering the brief period of emerging calm from Hameros` mind, leaving his eyes to blank a deathly shade of red all over again, the crimson outline of his body burning into a full blown aura, which itself seemed to spread and take shape, until it finally resembled a pair of demonic bat wings, sprouting from his upper back, an additional streak of red curling behind him as if it were a tail.
"Try and kill me."
An open embrace upon a bleeding tree
The world flashed red, ground and the figures who existed upon or near it tinted so black that they were only distinguishable from the side. The sun ceased to exist, the clouds blew away and the grass suddenly began to lose its brilliant green coloring.
When the red faded, the Wild Eagle was pressed back against the stiff support of the tree, standing, but not of his own power. Jamie hung before him murderously, only one hand extended as red liquid - blood - began to seep from the root of the very tree he had impaled his other self to. Callously, he hung there, feet never touching the ground, one leg extended behind him, the other bent forward as if running, his other arm slung carelessly out to the side.
Rest in me and I'll comfort you
And finally, at last, William Edgars - the Wild Eagle - spoke, if not with their physical voice, then with his thoughts, even as realization slowly began to dawn upon Jamie Hameros, realization of the magnitude of what he had just done.
"Now..."
A pause. He continued though, smiling slowly, without malice, without anger and without hatred.
"Now, you get to live with what you`ve just done. Good luck, brother."
I have lived and I died for you
With those words, the Wild Eagle`s eyes slid shut, and the outline faded. His head hung low, the leaves withered and broke away from the tree and the branches withered and died.
Abide in me and I vow to you
Snap.
I will never forsake you
William Edgars was dead. Another casualty in the wreckless streak of death perpetrated by Jamie Hameros.
"Oh... My... God..."
Reality of the mind gave way to reality of the body, and as he came to his senses, he also came to the realization that he had just committed murder. Again.
Unlike before though, that realization brought him back from the edge.
With reflexes he could`ve only possessed through fear and guilt, Jamie all but flew back to his feet, dropping the rag in the process, before turning to cover his raw forearm from the streaking water, feeling his fingers starting to prune from the humidity of the shower. As if on auto-pilot, he reached out and turned the flow of water off before flipping the door open and stepping out, like some sort of robot.
He didn`t look at the mirror, if he did, he would`ve seen the black eye he still bore, or the fist-sized bruise on his stomach. He paid those no mind now though, drying himself off as his eyes distantly gazed off into nowhere. Thoughts seemed to be blank, rational thought was deactivated, his brain`s defense mechanisms had finally kicked in and all he could do was live for the instant.
For a few moments, anyway.
They'll never see
After getting dressed, Jamie left the bathroom, leaving the light on and the exhaust fan running as he bundled his flightsuit up, no longer having need of it since he was wearing his usual clothing. The trademarked khaki jeanshorts and the red-and-white t-shirt that were both two or three sizes too tall for him to wear, though it now looked different on him.
Instead of a young man trying to give the impression of being too casual and comfortable for his own good, it gave the impression of a boy so insecure that he was trying to wear the clothing of an adult to make himself look bigger.
The empty look in his eyes didn`t exactly help either.
Minutes trickled by and he made his way down the hallway, back to the room he had once felt was rightfully his own, now feeling so detached from it that it wasn`t even remotely comfortable for him anymore.
First went his socks. Then sneakers, since the boots would`ve just been redundant at this stage. After that, he collected his old duffel bag, which was promptly and unceremoniously crammed full with his flight suit, a newly de-framed picture of his family, one that had been on his bedstand as well as whatever clothing he could ransack from the closet that he had once felt was his own.
With almost everything else done, Jamie bent down and threw on the vest that his now dead self had once worn as a private middle finger to the people who had sought to imprison them all, slinging it on without thought before grabbing his gloves and pulling them on. As an afterthought, he also grabbed the boots from the floor, finding some way to force them in with the rest of his makeshift supplies and zipping the bag up.
After that, he threw it around his shoulder and made for the door.
I'll never be
"Is that you, Jamie?" A younger voice asked from behind, just after he had gotten into the hallway and shut his door. It was a voice of innocent curiosity, a voice that could instantly disarm almost anyone, and a voice belonging to one of the three people that Jamie honestly did not want to have to see.
"Yeah," he answered emptily, not turning to face his nine year old sister. "Go back to bed, Linda. I gotta head out now and Mom and Dad would both be upset if they found you up at this hour," he said with as gentle and authoritative a voice he could manage.
Melinda Hameros wasn`t normally the type who scared easily, even for a child, she had a streak of independence and self-assuredness that rivalled most Zoid Warriors. Even if she still played with some of her toys, and even if she was a growing boyband fangirl, she was still the type who had a rebellious nature that could and sometimes did drive people insane.
That made it unnerving when she slowly nodded, her chocolate hair bouncing a bit in the tight, high ponytail she slept with it in. Those big, gray eyes would`ve probably given him a heart attack if he had turned to look at her, the same with her angelic face.
"Alright. Goodnight, Jamie," she offered, turning to go back to her bedroom, having forgotten that she had gotten up out of bed for the express purpose of getting herself a drink in the first place.
"Good-bye, Linda," he replied, waiting until he heard her footsteps lead back into her bedroom, then, as the door shut, he continued from where he had started.
Down he went, through the stairs and then the first living room, opening the door and then shutting it tight, having locked it in the process.
The walk to where the Raynos still stood like a golem was short and bitter, not even the smallest ounce of victory or satisfaction showing in his steps. The climb up was negated, the Zoid itself bent forward and the cockpit opened up expectantly, leaving Jamie to drop his sack in between where his legs would be spaced, and then hop in.
I'll struggle on and on to feed this hunger
"I`m sorry, everyone," he began finally, having recovered enough of his own sense of being that he could actually think for once. His hands fell to the controls on exhaustion-dulled reflex, fingers clad in thick gloves knowingly avoiding the triggers as he turned the Raynos away and allowed it to break into a quick sprint away from the house.
"But I don`t think I`ll ever be coming back..."
The thruster ignited, the Raynos refused to let out a cry of readyness and instead simply made one well timed jump, legs folding back into their usual in-flight posture.
Burning deep inside of me
And with that, Jamie Hameros took to the only skies he had ever truly wanted to fly in, the shadow of the Raynos briefly passing over the bedroom window of his sister, and then his mother and father.
He never knew that Linda had been watching him the entire time. He probably
wouldn`t have even cared if he did.
Author`s Notes: An author screw-up becomes a new character, and Jamie Hameros kills himself. Sort of.
Yeah. Don`t worry, next chapter, we`ll finally be through with the whole... Psychotic-trips-into-the-minds-of-Blitz-Team-members thing :P
Oh, and thank Zinou for the second half of this one. The original second half was utter and complete shit, but thanks to a beta read-and-comment, I got the mental reasoning to re-write it. Aren`t you glad? >_>;
The Big Fisch: *Hands out the advils.* :P Thomas did better than fine against Van and Irvine. That`s not even accounting for his confrontations with Karl and Raven(Hint: Remember the bit where Shadow was intimidated by Kale and supposedly, the last person to do that had been a murderously dedicated blonde man in his mid-twenties? Gee, wonder who that was?). And yes, Leena will be the same way - to an extent. She got the same treatment as Beke gave Thomas, but not as intense.
Be worried for Bit`s health anyway. I may not like how the next chapter turned out(compared to the three it falls in line with, it was really hard to write, but still at least readable, IMO), but considering what I have planned for that little blonde shit... Yeah. I`d be worried if I were you >_>
EndlessAdventure: Goody two shoes? Ye gods, man, this is still LEENA FREAKIN` TAUROS! Do you honestly expect her to become a full fledged goody-goody little bitch?! As for Thomas... Riese`s bugs had nothing to do with him losing it. She did the damage without them. Ph33r t3h R1353, j0.
And that`s all for now. Enjoy, leave a review, and Sh33p out.
Oh, and if you play Warcraft III/Frozen Throne, go read my new fic, Alliances. Shoddy title, but hell...
Sh33p really out this time.
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