Post by Ransack Manson on Mar 2, 2021 16:15:58 GMT -6
 The following is an excerpt from the files of Pete Harper: Despite Vegas being on lockdown, gaining access to the city was simple really. The protocols were all built to keep those inside within the perimeter, but most of the guards weren’t really paying mind to infiltration from the outside. And those guards who were looking? Well, the going rate for their willingness to look the other way was usually pretty affordable. I’d been in Vegas for several days before I’d caught wind that Ransack was living underground with the addicts and infirmed beneath the city. It all felt fitting when I realized. The madman made his home among the rest of the criminally insane cast-offs in the City of Sin. Ransack stood at the concrete wall directly behind his throne. He moved as if controlled by someone else, each muscle twitch which pulled him this way or that was beyond him. Ransack was compelled to take the stick of chalk into his hand and as if someone else moved into his form and took control. As Ransack felt his body move of its own volition, fear overwhelmed him. This moment was more of a prison than Devil’s Gate had ever been, and for the first time in his life, he felt like he was truly entirely out of control. Ransack had felt himself enter autopilot before, yes - the night at the church being the most prominent example that came to mind - but this time? The experience was simply something else. When he’d gone on autopilot before, it was for the most part the simple experience of instinct taking over. This experience though? This felt like being a passenger in a runaway car with slashed brake lines. Ransack sobbed, the tears falling heavy and carving out river beds in the accumulated grime on his face. In the pitch darkness, Ransack couldn’t see what his arms were doing, but he could feel the sensation of the chalk in his hand as it dragged against the wall. Writing perhaps? Maybe, but Ransack hadn’t written anything in ages. Even his own signature became an X years ago. Drawing? He’d never been artistically inclined. As a child, even finger painting was beyond his skill set. So the question screamed in Ransack’s mind: what the fuck am I doing? In order to explore the darkness under the city, I had to acquire a few important items, the most important of which was a handheld spotlight. I wanted to secure a respirator as well given what I was sure would be an overpowering smell of death and rot in the tunnels, but given the rather active pandemic, those were long ago rendered unavailable to the general public. Since I didn’t have the cash in hand to afford one on the black market, I secured the next best option: a little Vicks Vaporub above the upper lip and a tightly wrapped bandana around the mouth and nose. It was by no means perfect, but it did the job admirably. My first steps into the tunnels proved my educated guesses were dead on. The place was, indeed, full of every outcast that even a generation ago would have been subjected to forcible lobotomy as a means of treating their particular brand of insanity. Instead, they were just thrown out and left to rot like garbage. Perhaps lobotomies weren’t so inhumane after all… Ransack stood motionless before the wall. He has no idea what was scrawled across it, but yet he could sense that something was there. The control of his body had still not returned to him when he heard footsteps approaching and saw a blindingly bright light fall upon him that cast his shadow across the message on the wall. Ransack heard the man he’d come to realize was Harper pull the hammer back on a gun. Ransack felt the barrel of Harper’s gun press against the back of his skull before Harper saw the scrawling drawn out on the wall. Harper instinctually gasped, stumbled back a few steps, and suddenly fell to his knees weeping. Ransack heard his cries, and the bright light fell from Harper’s hand. As the light rolled away from Harper, it illuminated the whole wall from Ransack’s side in just such a way that prior shadows no longer obscured the message on the wall. Hi, Pete. Don’t shoot. It’s me. Nate The following is an excerpt from the transcripts of recordings found in the files of Dr. Reginald Royce: This man, this Ransack, serves a much deeper purpose than I think anyone understands at the moment. Including myself, mind you. I can’t pinpoint exactly what’s going to happen, but that feeling of intuition kicks in when I encounter his presence. Ultimately, only time will tell, but I think this man may be one of the beacons that I’ve been exhaustively searching for. Should my theories prove true - as, of course, I expect them to - this could be a scientific breakthrough beyond any before. An opening between the planes of our world and others might be sitting in a padded cell in my facility! Can you even imagine the ramifications of something so... >A knock at the door interrupts >An inaudible voice speaks There is never a dull moment where these lunatics abound! Ransack experienced the sudden realization that while his hands wrote the words on the wall, they poured out of someone else. It made Ransack feel like a rat in a trap, but even rats are left with options like gnawing off a limb for freedom. Ransack had no such escape; the trap was existential. It was inside him. He’d never felt quite like this, not with this intensity. Whatever was inside of him - whoever was inside of him - had as tight of a grip as Ransack had felt anyone have on him before. Ransack fought against the hold that the invader had over his body to turn and see Harper in a heap on the floor ugly crying. Harper’s arms had fallen to his sides as he remained on his knees on the disgusting concrete floor of the tunnel. The hammer on Harper’s gun remained cocked, but he was in no condition to fire the damn thing, let alone aim it. Harper was crushed by the moment. Harper finally saw that Dr. Royce’s wildest mad scientist daydreams were more reality than fiction. Harper saw that his cousin was somehow still out there and trying to make contact. Unfortunately, Ransack was privy to none of Harper’s knowledge, and everything just made him empathize with Onyx’s pets. Ransack was all alone, voiceless, and deprived of his humanity. He was nothing but a leashed dog in that moment. Ransack fought against the force within him to control himself again. First, he won back his eyes, then his mouth. He screamed out. “WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME?!” The invader immediately seized--again--control of Ransack’s faculties, and the madman went silent. Harper’s gaze shot up from the ground to meet Ransack’s as Harper shakily rose to his feet. “He...he was right. You’re the...the beacon.” Harper wiped his eyes with one hand as he safely holstered his weapon. Harper let out a pained sigh before speaking sharply at Ransack but to someone else entirely. “You brought him here, didn’t you? This was...” Harper choked up again and couldn’t finish the thought. Ransack felt an unfamiliar voice welling up from inside of himself which growled out of its own accord. Ransack spoke without speaking. “I figured you’d be happier to see me, cousin.” Harper swallowed the lump in his throat as he rebuked the sentiment. “I don’t see you. I see him.” “Well thanks for not spraying his brains all over my artwork.” When I departed Maine, I had a single focus: put the man we knew as Ransack Manson down like a rabid dog. It wasn’t work I was excited or happy about having to do, but it had to be done before anyone - anyone else was probably a more suitable phrase by that point - could be hurt by the weaponized madness of our Broken Arrows. When the moment arose, I couldn’t pull the trigger. My cousin’s voice - Nate’s voice! - erupted from Ransack’s body. If Nate has any existence inside of the beacon, I wanted to preserve my renewed connection to my cousin. I couldn’t end Ransack Manson anymore than I could have ended Nate himself, and now I have no choice but to ensure that I don’t lose him again. Ransack has to survive this tournament. He has to return to Devil’s Gate, and the only way to ensure that can happen in this environment of black markets and corrupt leaders gone mad is if we can grease palms with the tournament prize. The Beacon must return to Devil’s Gate at all costs. |