GetBackOLS wrote the prelude of this side story, 'Side Story: Prelude to Destruction', in his novel "Rise of the Henchmen."

Side Story: Melancholy of Destruction

Edited By

GetBackOLS

Crossing the street, a man wearing a torn straight jacket fit right in with the convention goers of the popular movie franchise named “Heroic Insanity.” However, unlike these revelers, this man is an actual recently escaped mental patient, Mark Jones. As he crosses the street while the pedestrian light was green, he couldn’t help but breathe in the air around him. He was indeed feeling a form of catharsis, his smile was so pure it could even make angels cry. The sun gave him warmth he thought lost and he could not help but ponder why so many rushed about. In his mind, he found the other people who likewise wore strait jackets to be rather childish. The blood splatter on their clothes, cheap imitations, and their messy hair, uncleanly. He did not take offense to this however. Rather, he found it enjoyable to watch as children role played things they had little to no idea about. Much like watching toddlers pretend a box was a spaceship to the moon. However, his perfect scenery and state of mind was tossed onto the floor along with an empty can of soda.

A middle-aged man on his way to the convention were his friends were waiting finished drinking a can of Dakota Star, an unpopular orange soda. This particular man was dressed in the same style as the arch villain of the third and most unpopular movie villain of the franchise, ‘Green Hat’ with a green overcoat, a frayed suit, and a large green hat. In his haste to join his friends he tossed the can of Dakota Star into a trashcan outside of the convention center. However, his aim was bad at best. As it landed, Mark Jones’ seemingly transcended serenity instantly shattered with it metallic clink. His eyes wandered to the can and then back to the fellow wearing the green hat. The fellow was waiting for the pedestrian light just across the convention center.

Mark Jones’ then spoke up, “Pick it up.” With the various conversations happening on the street no one paid his words any mind. However, he felt slighted as if his words carry no weight. He then repeated himself, this time with more emphasis, “Pick It Up.” At this several convention goers began to pay him heed and silence spread like a wave. Almost instantly everyone but the man with the green hat had their eyes glued on Mark Jone’s and the man with the green hat. Mark Jones then approached the middle aged man wearing a green hat and as if sensing danger he made an abrupt turn to look back. Mark Jones’ a full foot taller than him, stared at the skinny fellow as one would the mosquito that bit him and said, “PICK. IT. UP.”

“Huh?” responded the man with the very tacky hat. It is important to mention that the fellow with the green hat has long been a contrarian, which is to say he enjoys actively opposing others and their viewpoints. As long as something is popular, he believes it should be unused and that it’s ‘overhyped.’ If something is unpopular then it must be that people are ignorant and can’t fathom true ‘artwork.’ Needless to say, he actively enjoys annoying people and especially, in his case, to death. This was, sadly, unknown to Mark Jones.

Mark Jones then forcefully pointed at the can of empty orange soda. The fellow in the green hat, however, began to laugh. “Gehehehe, what are you some sort of avenging hero of the littering police? Let me tell you something! The city hires people to clean up the streets on a regular basis. These people are not paid much but it's steady work. Now, what would happen if I do pick it up? What if everyone does so? Then the city would no longer need these fine underpaid men and therefore they would be made unemployed. So I ask you, why do you hate jobs?!? You think you're better than others and their work in meaningless? Huh?!” As far as the man with the green hat is concerned, Mark Jones was just another busy body who is angered too easily. That is to say, the man with the tacky green hat viewed him as prey for him to play around with as a cat would a mouse.

Indeed, he was correct. Mark Jones is easily angered. If he were a normal person he would have blown up with rage at the irresponsible and reprehensible words spoken by the tacky man but he is not a normal person. Instead he smiled. It was as if a man was looking at his own child mature and enter into society a proper individual. A kind of bittersweet happiness as he knows the child is gone and the man has grown. With a tender heart he placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “A man should take responsibility over their words and actions.”

To everyone else, Mark Jones had a smile the exuded warmth and kindness but the man in the shabby suit couldn’t help but feel coldness and cruelty. Life was hard for the messy man. From being born in an orphanage to having to steal in order to make a living. In his life he has experienced many beatings. From his caretakers and his enemies alike. However, this made him immune to the fear from the threat of violence from others but one omission and that was Mrs. Wessington, the director of the orphanage. Mrs. Wessington was an avid believer of the concept of ‘tough love’ and she did her best to educate the children in her charge to the best of her abilities. However, all things have exceptions.

Mr. and Mrs. Wessington were always romantics and their love was incredibly deep and could be described as always being together. Growing up together as neighbors to living together when Mr. Wessington’s parents passed away to polio. Some of the final victims of the disease. Thankfully, their child, Mr. Wessington, was immunized. The family’s friends and neighbors then took him in. Although he no longer had parents he still had a significant fortune left from the Wessington estate but despite the makings for a cheap drama he grew up well later married Mrs. Wessington, the family’s only daughter.

There was one issue, however, and that was Mrs. Wessington was barren. This was a soul crushing shock to the couple who always been together. One must know that before they found out they were planning to have a rather large family. Even going so far as to buying a mansion so give room to all their future children. This couple survived the shock but still felt a bit of emptiness in the large mansion. Rather than downsize the family they decided to open an orphanage. They hired many staff and took charge of many children. Although not their own they still treated all those within their mansion as family.

However, this would not last. Clair Osborne was Mrs. Wessington’s secretary. In the time and age those types of employment were lifelong and needless to say Ms. Osborne and Mrs. Wessington were quite close. In their seemingly perfect life lied a deep seated regret and guilt within Mrs. Wessington’s heart. In her opinion she denied Mr. Wessington the opportunity to be a father and shared this regret with her friend Ms. Osborne.

Together they formed an idea, that Ms. Osborne can bear Mr. Wessington’s child and then the Wessington’s could adopt him/her. Mr. Wessington, who indeed wanted his own child also agreed after much prodding. Perhaps this arrangement could have worked if not for one thing, love. In the course of millions of years of evolution, all mammals have developed a deep seeded love for one’s own children. This love can be twisted, suppressed, and even ignored but not extinguished. When Ms. Osborne saw the infant child in her arms she felt regret at the agreement and decided to break it. However, Mr. Wessington could not leave it at that, this was his child after all. Furthermore, human children are intensive and Ms. Osborne, being an orphan herself, didn’t have much support in raising him. Therefore, she was forced to rely on Mr. Wessington and his money while Mr. Wessington did all he could to convince her to follow the original contract.

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In Mr. Wessington’s ideal world this child would be his and his wife’s. However, the world is not ideal, rather, it’s tacky, much like a green hat. In the end Mr. Wessington and Ms. Osborne were arguing while driving one rainy night and like so many before died in a frontal collision with another car. The little boy in the back seat survived in, what was in that era, a newly invented baby car seat. However, Ms. Osborne being an orphan and his father being ‘unknown’ he was placed in the care of the local orphanage, under the dutiful Mrs. Wessington. When Mrs. Wessington saw the child who should have been hers, the one that nearly destroyed her marriage, the child of the one who betrayed her but most of all her own failure as a woman in her care she smiled.

Thus he knew just what kind of coldness laid in that smile. He immediately moved to remove Mark’s hand but before he was quickly punched in the stomach into the traffic on the street. He flew a full 5 feet before crashing into a moving semi-truck. People everywhere began to stop their vehicles. The truck driver exited the vehicle and went around to look at the messy body. With the indent made to the semi-truck no average person could be expected to be alive but he was not average. He took in a large painful breath and then puked his guts out as he fell on the floor. Mark Jones slowly approached him. He looked up and he managed to stutter out, “what are you doing?”

Mark Jones once again thought for a minute and said “taking out the trash.” The man who lost his green hat began to laugh, “As if I’m going to die to such a lousy pun.” He then stood up and took out a paint brush. He aimed the paint brush at Mark Jones and twisted the end and with a little explosion the bristles turned into flying needles inserting themselves into Mark Jones and a few other spectators.

Before this had happened they thought they were in a live movie shooting, which came with a bit of disappointment at the return of Green Hat. After, their fellow spectators, friends, and love ones fell and began to enter anaphylactic shock they realized the true matter. Screams and panic rang through the streets. Many called the police while others dragged the victims away from the madmen in the middle of the street. However, as if oblivious to the pain of others the tacky man began to say, “Gehehehe! Taste the seven colored poison of I Master Brushstroke! Regret crossing my path as you enter an oblivion of pain.”

Mark Jones body was in extreme pain. Furthermore, His skin randomly discolored and turned into a blotch painting of the colors of the rainbow. However, he was not perturbed in the slightest instead he began to flex his muscles throughout his body. Slowly the needles were being pushed out and some went flying right next to Master Brushstroke. Master Brushstroke, however, felt fear deep in his bones at the inhuman feat. He quickly got out his cell phone and made a call, “It’s me. I’m still outside you all need-… LET ME FINISH. You all need to get out here now! There’s a crazy mutant that’s trying to kill me! Lammergier quit being a dick and come out now!” He hanged up the phone and said “Fuck. The friends I have.”

Meanwhile, Mark Jones already removed 70% of the needles and was quickly finishing up the process. Master Brushstroke began to take out multi-colored bottles from his green overcoat and throw them at Mark Jones. One landed on his face but aside from a little steam and redness not much more happen. “Fuck!” screamed Master Brushstroke, “That was enough acid to melt a hole in a battleship! What the fuck are you!?” With a peng the last needle was ejected from Mark Jones body. He then straightened himself and said, “Rather than what it is whom. I am Phanuel. Here to redeem you.”

Just as he finished speaking a man and woman in a mental hospital’s nurses’ costume along with a man shaped tiger wearing a purple suit like the movie villain in the first ‘Heroic Insanity’ movie. The male nurse at seeing the distressed Master Brushstroke began to laugh, “What’s wrong? Can’t handle a single mental patient by yourself?” “Just shut up and help, Lammergier.” Lammergier then began to levitate off the ground and took a silenced handgun hidden in his uniform. With a calm composed look as if the world was under his control he shot Phanuel in the back of his head saying, “There, problem sol-.” Suddenly a blue sedan was sent flying and crashed into him. The bullet broke through Phanuel’s skin but not his skull. It did serve to enrage him though as the cold look he had throughout his fight with Master Brushstroke gained an even deeper murderous glint.

Lammergier crashed with the car on top of him. However, thanks to multiple body enhancing surgeries and experiments he managed to barely survive although unconscious. Phanuel then punched the startled Tiger Man into the window of a nearby car and slowly began walking towards the nurse and the tacky man, who were stepping back. Master Brushstroke then screamed at the nurse as he pulled out tiny paint bottles, “Madam Delphinium call everyone right now!” “Oh dear, It will take them hours to get to this city. I fear it will be far too late by then.” Responded the nurse as she tossed strange seeds on the ground. Master Brushstroke began to throw the paint bottles at Phanuel both with ominous multicolored smoke arising while saying, “What about your new boyfriend?! Lord zik, cek… Zek! Lord Zek!”

Madam Delphinium then pulled out a phone and began to make a call. However, Phanuel was upon Master Brushstroke who’s back was against a truck. Phanuel then smiled and said, “Fear not child. For this is for your own good.” Just when he was about to punch a hole in Master Brushstroke Tiger Man roared as he tore flesh from Phanuel’s back with his claws. Phanuel did not panic but instead turned around and grabbed Tiger Mans arm. Before he could dislocate it strange red vines grew across his body and entered his wounds, causing so much pain even Phanuel screamed. He began to tear away at the vines but they seemed to grow just as fast as he could break them. Tiger Man also began to slash away and Master Brushstroke continued to use every kind of insidious poison he managed to tuck away in his tacky green overcoat.

Phanuel’s eyes grew bloodshot defending against the different opponents until he shouted, “enough!” With his scream a blood red bubble appeared around him with him at the center. It then exploded with incredible heat and force. Tigerman was sent into a nearby car partially bald and charred. The plants were eradicated and there was no longer any smoke from Master Brushstroke’s poison. Phanuel was tired though. Nearly exhausted he once again stood and approached the villains. Master Brushstroke and Madam Delphinium threw everything they had left at him. However, Phanuel was having none of it. His speed suddenly increased massively and he appeared right in front of Madam Delphinium were he punched her so hard her into a nearby store window, shattering it.

Her once graceful face now bloodily disfigured. Master Brushstroke felt cold raw fear and began to run for it. Phanuel was far faster though. He caught the little runaway by the arm and tossed him like a Frisbee. As soon as he crashed into the ground unconscious Phanuel was going to kick him like a football when Lord Zek appeared.

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GetBackOLS will be writing the conclusion of the fight in his side story Zek Fight for the novel, "Rise of the Henchmen".