[!] When The Bill Comes Due ==>
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..
And I fear no evil ‘cause I’m blind to it all..
And my mind, my gun they comfort me..
Because I know I’ll kill my enemies when them come….
“Hushhh, rest now.”
“Rest now… and Sleeeep…”
That was all a voice echoed to her through a warble and chorus of running water through one’s vocal chords. The raking sound of chain links rattling as they were pulled away clanked into the air as a thunderous rancor of a rolling storm overhead began to pour onto singed soil.
The thick scent of scorched earth and muggy swamp filled the air as wisps of ethereal blue smoke floated past rotten smiling lips. Blue and blackened eyes stared down at the wake of chaos they had wrought upon the earth nearby. With every flash of passing lightning, the scene itself turned eve more grizzly.
Each flash revealed just how much had been done more and more. A woman in Blue armor lay limp, partially embedded onto the rock hard ground, partially smoldering. Her chest gentle moved up and down, the tell tale sign that she were still alive, that she were still breathing…
The air itself seemed uneasy, feeling as if the currents of wind and water fluctuated, churning like a hurricane’s waters above the scene. Only what seemed like fleeting seconds before was the air ever still, the calm before the brewing storm that had wrought itself onto the land so quickly from the eastern ridges.
With the thunder booming, causing the earth to tremble and shudder, Bella’s daze centered and wavered just enough to hear the echoes of her memory however foggy from just seemingly seconds before chaos tossed the land asunder.
The voice of the Creator echoed in her mind as flashes of lightning bring her back to still sands and cold ground just moments before. Thumps of footsteps through darkened caves and crystalline floors as the pair of them traveled through the darkness to emerge from the earth’s depths. As they reached open air, one could easily taste the sea salt and spray that unnaturally lingered within darkened midday shadows.
“The air wreaks of contempt and of the Dead Sea. Investigate, Belladonna. I will take the Crystal to the lab. I fear for the storm that is brewing on the horizon.”
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
And I will dwell on this earth for ever more.
Said I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul.
But I can’t walk on the path of the right because I’m wrong.
Green bolts of static shoot across the floor and course along his body to extend from his fingertips as they jolt forward, his hand outstretched. Collectively, they gather to form a tall green shimmering doorway that only he could step through. Warping electricity sounds through the air as the man disappears behind the dissolving door, leaving Belladonna alone with the shadows along eastern mesas and aged mires.
With a held breath, Bella kept her one eye searching for anything as she followed unholy sounds and scents through the bog and mire nearby only to be lead to nowhere. Along waterlogged ground, bubbles began to form and pop, seemingly to follow every step she made. A stinging tinge of fear crept up along her spine as the spikes stuck out, rattling in distaste to the situation.
“Welcome to the Depths…” A voice spoke from below as the bubbles began to collect and grow.
Before she knew it, the screech of boiling air being carved in-twain made itself known as a pulse of blue and purple shoot through the foggy mire, soaring just shy of the woman’s head. The bolt itself collides with the ground behind her, igniting the waters and earth as the smoke billowed all too quickly into the air to shroud the already dark earth with a seemingly pitch black sea-scented smog.
|Ranger… Ready!| “…. Henshin!” |Go-Go Mighty-Mighty Blue!|
The hyur’s voice called out to darkened skies with panic and fear lingering lightly along her tone as the sounds of armor forming and locking along her body clank and clash to create her suit. She hadn’t even thought to Morph, her heart weak as ever still pounded with the force of a million drums as her head turned to face the source of the first attack. But she were too late, the screech of another purple hued bolt careened through the air to collide with her helmet-half formed.
The weight of the impact sent her flying to the ground as two… three… four… five more bolts of both purple and blue hues collide with her armored body. Each strike splashed and washed against the earth, soaking the dirt with scent of the sea. The force of each hit darkened her vision as it blurred and faded. The concussive waves far too strong for even her. All she could hear in the fading light was the warbled laughter of The Dead Man.
“Drink it in… Ranger.”
“Drink it all in… Every last drop. For every last soul you abandoned…”
“Every last soul you damned with your so called… "heroics”…“
As Bella laid there in her half-coherent mangle of a body, her mind faded again and again. Each word spoken to her, an echoing darkness that haunted her as the young Ranger she used to be was brought back to her now… a dark reminder that she wasn’t one to belong onto the title of a "Hero”.
“Shhh shhh shhhh….”
“Sleeeep…. Sink into the darkness.”
“Let that Hex you’ve had strain your body… take hold..”
“And when you wake…?”
“Ahahahaha….A new woman to be brought into the depths…”
Her mind was swimming in the sea of a million memories as she raced to find which ones fit with the voice she heard. Trickles and traces of fading existence passed through her mind before her mind went black again. Succumbing to the strain and concussive strikes that had struck her again and again. The strength of each strike against separate parts of her strained her senses. The Pearls she had in her ear going dark from the shear weight of it all as her body grew still from the numbing strength.
She was stuck, immobile in a trap that she had no way out of…
Perfect.
She were His prey now… And yet… The man who spoke, despite his voice of darkened drownings and strength of the churning sea… He only had words… so it seemed.
“Well You know who I am… Ranger.”
“And soon… your new Rangers will know…”
“They will know… When you wake, that the Butcher’s Bill….”
“Always.”
“Comes.”
“Due.”
No I can’t walk…
On the path of the right.
‘Cause I’m wrong….
It's Morphin' Time - XIV 