Point of Documentation: Marshall, Phoenix 11
Soreness filled Marshall’s body as he started to come into consciousness. It was like his entire body had been hit over and over with a pipe in dozens of places, especially around his chest. He had a fuzzy memory of his dream, some things fading in and out for what had occurred within. It dealt with his time back in the cruiser he served on for a small stint… “Ugh…” came the groan from his mouth as he looked around.
The first thing he noticed upon waking was the scattered remains of some metallic object that had exploded around the room. It was peppered everywhere and looked like a whirlwind had come through the room and scattered it for the fun of it. The thought that accompanied this discovery was how the hell had the guards outside hadn’t heard this. Whatever happened when he passed out must have been loud, right?
Movement in the corner of the room drew Marshall’s attention as he turned his head around to look. The blue-skinned goblin was there with a look of surprise on his face. He was talking into some object in his hand, and seemed to quickly dismiss it upon noticing Marshall’s gaze. What was this thing’s name again? Tethel, he thought. Yeah, that had to be it. Why was his mind so scattered right now that he couldn’t even remember a name?
“Human, how are you feeling?” came the less-than-concerned response from the little imp-like being. He seemed to rub his hands together rhythmically as he stared at Marshall. Was Tethel… nervous? What the hell happened while he was out?
Marshall took a moment to respond, and it actually seemed like Tethal was willing to give him that minute. “I feel awful.” There wasn’t much use to hold back, and Marshall just blurted it out in a tired tone. “I’m not sure what happened, but you did a number to me. Can we please not do whatever that was again?” It was less of a question, but more of a statement disguised as one.
Tethal seemed to pick up on this and waved a hand. “Oh no, no, we absolutely will not be using that device anymore. After all: it’s scattered over most of this room. I’d have to return for another scanner to use it.”
So it had been the rod that had detonated? The reason why was unclear, so Marshall asked. “Tethel. What do you mean it detonated? I’m a little lost here on what just happened.”
Tethel, for his part, seemed a little taken back at this. “You did it unconsciously?” This phrase seemed to alarm him more than the rod being destroyed did. His words seemed to catch in his throat for a moment before he coughed and continued. “You, uh, ignited your core during my scanning. It caused a large power-flux of Void energy that shifted in the room violently for a moment and gave large feedback through the device.”
Void core? The organ that Tethel was talking about before? Marshall looked down at his chest, an unchanged shirt on his body now visible without his hazmat suit on. Yeah, nothing seemed different than before except that burning feeling under his skin. “Sorry about your scanner-thing, I guess? Not sure what I’m supposed to feel when a magical blue goblin-thing tells me I just ‘activated’ a new organ in my body that can do super powers. Do I get a newsletter in the mail once a week that explains my benefit plans?”
They stared at each other for a few seconds before Tethel just frowned. “You’re not taking this seriously, are you?”
Marshall seemed to really think about that for a second before firing back his own response. “Let’s see… I’ve been stranded on Terra, chased by Voidlings, shot at, chased, and captured by people, tortured, assaulted by a random butterfly-goblin with a stick, and now I have super powers? I blame the trauma response on the horrible food quality they fed me in the cafeteria.”
Truly Marshall had been stretched thin on his sanity at this point. So many weird, dangerous, and downright ridiculous things had happened to him in such a short time on this planet that he was starting to get the fallout of all the whiplash he had endured. He thought about it all and came to the conclusion that he was seriously starting to get numb to these things just happening to him at this point. Over the course of, what, a half a month? Maybe not even that long?
“Sorry, that was a lot more venomous than I meant. Even if you did straight up cause me internal trauma from all that wand-business. I’m taking you seriously, but I’m not sure how to even process this right now. I’m not even sure how to test or see what you’re talking about.” Even as Marshall was finishing his sentence, a small purple mote floated past his vision mere inches from his face. It caused Marshall to flinch back slightly, causing the mote to react and float in the absence of solid material towards his face more. It landed on his flesh and caused a small amount of coldness where it landed akin to a snowflake landing on his skin. “What... what was that?”
Tethel smiled and answered. “That is a coalesced mote of Void Essence that is clumped up and more potent than simple ambient essence.” He pointed up to the vent above Marshall. “They planned to poison you and let the Void Scourge take you, and if you survived, use you. What a terrible fate, isn’t it?”
Above the two was the fan in question as well as the dingy ceiling that Marshall had looked at before. Now as he looked at it, Marshall noticed the motes drifting out from the slow moving fan like dust from an old vent. It also collected along the edge of the fan’s housing and the ceiling around it like a dust sheet on old, unused furniture. This amount was apparently completely harmless to the normal person, but to someone with the Scourge…
“Wait, if all of this was always here and in the room, how were those three not dying with me? That is a lot, right?” Marshall’s eyes drifted down to Tethel, who had materialized a toothpick out of thin air.
With a mock-wiseman’s expression, Tethel answered him. “No, the amount needed to poison a human is more than that. It needs to be at least your body mass in a Terran-hour’s time. Then you get the Scourge. This is nothing compared to that, but very toxic to someone like you. Rather, like someone you were.” He took the toothpick and flicked it, causing it to seemingly disintegrate into those purplish motes that hazed and hit Marshall directly. He immediately felt the cold rush over him as Tethel continued talking. “You’ll need to come to understand that power of yours more, and I won’t be much help with that. You broke my scanner.” Tethel pointed to the ground with the shards still on it.
“Right… sorry about that.” Marshall said in a more apologetic tone. “But you’re a scouter, right? You said so yourself. Someone that scouts out potential people and their powers for some higher being?”
Tethel held up a finger. “Greater Being; and yes, I do in fact scout for them. What’s your point?”
Marshall nodded, his ropes starting to rub a sore in his neck with all this head movements, and continued. “If you ask them, they should be able to tell you, right? Or even better: you know powers and how people use them, right? Don’t you have any guesses or anything?”
To say that Tethel looked apprehensive at this would be an understatement. He looked downright appalled at the idea. “I am NOT a life coach for some human, even for a special case. However… I do plan on telling them about what happened here. So I can get their input and come back and advise.”
Marshall had a bad feeling as Tethel said this. “And… how long would that be, exactly?”
Tethel smiled and said “Oh, a year or two in your time. It takes a long time to travel there and back. And I must say, there are some wonderful festivals happening in Averaan this year. I might need to stop there and make a small appearance!”
There it was. Marshall groaned and lowered his head. Of course, the little blue shit wouldn’t want to help a being he viewed as lower. He needed some way to get this being to either actually help him or get leverage–
A strange feeling came over him as he felt something mentally reach out to him. Yes, mentally. He didn’t know how he knew this, but it was like knowledge was just dropped in his mind from something else. He looked up at Tethel, a look of determination on Marshall’s face. “What if I told you there’s a Voidling down below this facility that they have restrained?”
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Tethel’s face went from a shit-eating grin and mockery to one of disbelief. “Please, if you wanted to catch my attention, I need something more believable than that.”
“Oh, I can do you more than make it more ‘believable’. The machine that is keeping it held has been soaked so much in that Void Essence stuff that it was able to communicate its misery and pain to me. Somehow. I don’t know how, but I know that the thought didn’t creep in from some imaginary friend or something.” Marshall looked at Tethel with intent. “And I think I know how to get there.”
“Oh?” Tethel was more curious than anything now, leaning forwards from where he was. “So what is this grand, master plan of yours, Human? Have you figured out what your method of Void Essence tapping is?”
Marshall gave a shake of his head. “No idea… but I do have a plan. They may have taken my firearm and gear, but they left me plenty of things to work with.”
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A day passed before the woman and her two henchmen came back. When Sinclair did return, she returned with a map and a wheelchair. One of the henchmen wheeled it in behind her and she scooted the other chair in the room over to the man. She spun it and sat in it once again. The room barely changed at all, yet something felt inherently… colder?
“Mr. Locke, I know I said I’d love to get the details after our little date? That needs to be moved up. I want an answer now, and then we can have our little fun.”
She looked at the man who hung his head low, seemingly depressed. Sleep had not taken him, as she could see his eyes barely open. The guard had told her that he was screaming and pleading for hours yesterday. Maybe he had broken?
The thought was interrupted as he actually spoke up. “You know, I’m very new to this whole ‘Void’ stuff down here. So I never thought to ask. You seem much more talented than most of the riff raff around here. Do you have a power?” His words were soft, and seemed to be from a tired and weary man.
Sinclair was aware of the man’s sudden switch from spiteful before to something much more subdued. It was far too sudden… but maybe the words from yesterday really did affect him that much? “Yes, I’m sure you must be overwhelmed with actually acknowledging that we can hold such power. I, an intellectual, do in fact have a way to manifest a power. A complex thing that allows me to understand whatever I take apart to a staggering amount. Which is why I need you, Mr. Locke, to work with us quietly. I only need to tear you apart a little, and I can get what I need from you. But if you struggle, I’ll need to keep going.” A sadistic smile crossed her face from the joy she felt at imagining it.
The man shook his head and mumbled something. He seemed to say something with a tear flowing down his cheek. Yes, this was what she wanted: abject hopelessness to her scalpel. A feeling of standing on a man’s neck without even moving a finger. She leaned in closer to hear him. “Speak up, Mr. Locke. I can’t afford too much–”
A pain blossomed in her neck as she heard him speak. “I can’t fucking believe I got caught by a biology dropout.”
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Marshall had worked all day on getting the knife hidden in his pilot suit’s arm sleeve to come out. It then took a few hours to even cut some of the ropes on the back of the chair. They didn’t skimp on the hemp, these ropes were thick. He was lucky they hadn’t used something more metallic or otherwise, as the knife he had wouldn’t have been able to stand up to something stronger. It was a simple hidden blade after all, and something that was really only used to cut his cockpit’s harness in emergencies.
Around the time he started, he told Tethel to clean up the shard of the rod and hide. Through hours of grumbles of Tethel bitching about having to do what a ‘lowly human told him’, Tethel eventually caved under the pure curiosity of whether it would work or not. After cleaning up the pieces, Tethel became his butterfly form again and fluttered up into the vent again.
Then it was simply a matter of waiting. He cut just enough of the rope that he was confident he could bust them with strength alone. He waited, and he thought. Marshall didn’t want to do anything on Terra that would leave any rippling effects. A single death could have massive repercussions that would have not existed without his presence, and he wanted to avoid that as much as possible. The bandits were an unfortunate situation that he wished he could have avoided. It was also the reason he had just simply rode along with the crew of Betty instead of separating and acting alone. If he stuck with them, less people would be affected by his actions alone.
Coming to this town was probably his worst mistake. He had put himself front and center on the stage of the travel and his actions would be paramount to things that happen. That thought was more than accurate as Cadence propped him up as some ‘Templar’ group member and made him the center of attention with her attempts to ground him to Terra and not as an outsider. One of the main actions that got him into this situation as is. He didn’t blame her, but he also couldn’t ignore what had lead here.
Marshall had steeled himself now. He was no longer allowed to be passive, this Void Scourge that he hoped to just ride out until he got back to the Castle to be cured was now something much, much worse. Better in some ways, but worse in others. He hadn’t thought about home or how things would be handled there much, but this Scourge business would make him an outsider even there now. If he was to be outside the normal, then his actions needed to reflect that and wrest fate back into his hands.
Marshall had only really shown his strength back when Cadence was in trouble and under fire or when he moved from what was the Urals to Eastern Europe. He was a member of the Castle’s Navy, and had to go through training to be where he was now. Pilots weren’t just simply fly-boys there, but survival experts when their crafts land on enemy stations. Not as talented as some of the other branches, but they needed to be prepared.
When she had entered in, his resolve was once more restored. Possibly even fortified compared to days ago. Some of that dream even slowly coming back to him in the idle moments minutes before Sinclair entered. Willpower. He needed more of it.
He noticed it as she entered the room: Sinclair had a certain feeling to her presence that spoke that she had something… ‘more’ to her. Something different on a fundamental level. It was like Tethel said: he could feel that she was also one of those ‘Ascended’ or ‘Powered’ or whatever the fuck it was called.
She had placed herself over him and gloated at him being there, at Marshall’s position and unfortunate situation. At him being her plaything. He just had to know. He asked her what her power was… and was so disappointed at the response. Her power was to observe? Sure, it would be useful in a lab environment, but she was a torturer not a lab coat wearing professor! A tear of pure frustration rolled down his cheek, a result of his acting more than actual despair.
When she leaned down to her his wordless mumble he struck out. The knife flashing quickly, the woman was taken by surprise as it embedded itself into her neck. A deep and possibly fatal wound, but not instant death. With his bonds now broken and the rope laying on the ground: Marshall grabbed Sinclair as the two goons raised their guns. The orc-looking one seemed to have a gleam in his eye. Revenge from the alley, no doubt. This was what he was waiting for: to kill Marshall. Marshall had seen that look before. So Marshall purposefully used Sinclair’s body as a blocker between them specifically, half-blocking from the other one.
“We can do this the easy way if you want. Let me go and get her medically when I let go of her on the steps of this place.” Marshall saw the orc raise the gun and aimed it center-mass to the woman. The small motes around the room floated near the orc, almost imperceptibly so. Whatever it was doing, it couldn’t be good.
“Right, so hard way then.” Marshall ripped the knife from Sinclair, spelling her fate. He pushed hard, praying that the gun wouldn’t make it through the woman’s body with its hail of fire. The second person aimed slower, less intent in their movements. Marshall didn’t have the luxury to not act on this opening and went for it. He tossed the knife in a gamble that it would stumble them long enough for Marshall to act.
The knife landed true and hit their bracing shoulder right before the gun came up to it. It caused them pain and made them pause in raising the gun up to it. Marshall dashed forwards and used his left hand to grab the barrel of the gun and rip it aside. With his other hand he smashed into the elf’s face with all his force he could muster. It shattered the man’s nose, causing a spout of blood to come from it. Marshall didn’t wait to see if the man would recover and ripped the knife from his shoulder. He then used it to the same effect as with Sinclair, downing the elf.
Marshall’s attention turned to the Orc as he saw him toss Sinclair away from him. The gun now free, it turned to Marshall. A feeling of pure disdain and fury welled within Marshall as he faced down death at the hand of this no-named orc with a firearm. As Marshall saw this scene in almost pre-death slow motion, he noticed the motes had surrounded the firearm in an almost cast.
The orc grinned as he pulled the trigger directly at Marshall… only for the firearm to jam and the case to crack through the receiver’s housing and misfire into the barrel. The shot still came, scoring a hit into Marshall’s own shoulder. The confusion on the orc’s face was the only thing Marshall paid attention to as he rushed the man. Forget the pain, fight through it. He focused, and soon the orc was laid back with the knife replacing one of their eyes.
Marshall sat up from the orc’s body and heaved a massive sigh. Tethel floated down and turned into his more goblin-like body. A look of confusion and glee in equal amounts was on his face as he looked over Marshall. “Well, that at least gives us a start to this ability of yours. Shall you get going before they check what the fire was fro–”
A large explosion rocked the foundation of the building, causing dust to come down from the ceiling. Actual dust this time. Marshall just looked up and groaned. “What now?”