To Transcend the Flesh

The movement of the blue crescent was filled with a collage of sounds. The mixture of sounds resembled the gurgle that smiling babies make after quenching a harsh thirst, the sounds that a flock of water fowl made after bathing within an ocean and a sound that resembled, blended with, the cacophony of an arena; voices raised until all that can be discerned is a beautiful, song-like, thrum. It was all of these things and more, an indescribable mixture of tastes; audibly. It had to come to an end. It did.

The power of the blue movement transformed in an instant into something else. As it crashed against the wall of the pool where so few lavished it managed to disrupt each and every one of the floating people. I knew, within myself, that these individuals were not really people but talking extensions of thoughtless reaction, of money and power, but I was fascinated with the swirl in the blue. I was fascinated with the water, it's incomprehensible nature so similar to my own and yet so simple. I knew that the water is a danger for me to enter, that water changes the focus, I knew that Az had warned me against making foolish choices. There, really, was never any choice though. I loved water. I loved the movement of the silk across the velvet that is skin, the partaking so much like a kiss that encapsulates the entire body; I craved it and I needed it.

The rustle of my flame red robes, looking similar to a monk with my voluminous sleeves that could, and do, hide secrets that no vision could pierce and wide cowl that kept my shadowed face in darkness, was barely a whisper compared to the jostle of bodies that seemed determined to hammer into me as I walked across the "pit" towards the pool. For a moment I actually wondered if the Teacher was manipulating these people into my path, but only for a moment; the teacher would let me learn my own lessons now. And it was through an innocent's eyes that I watched the parting of the people at the last few steps and came face to face with my love, the water.

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The wood was of impeccable craftsmanship and, as such, I felt compelled to continue touching it. The grains were of polished, naturally darkened sequoia, as ordered as a column of ants marching eagerly home. Toward the sides of the banister the mark of the craftsman was left in the form of incredibly intricate scrollwork; lines that webbed outward in the form of pages all kept within the framework of a book. Such powerful craftsmanship in a banister; how appropriate for a dance club that worships water, I thought to myself idly as my space-devouring steps carried me from the steps and into the roar of people.

Before the crush of people could sway into my body and disrupt my thoughts I decided to be a bit frivolous; this was my first night to party in an incalculably long time. Unfortunately I had spent so much to free myself from the bonds of self-hate that the mistake was made even before I realized it. Living anew had made my re-birthed senses unaware of the danger in giving into temptation. My fingertips fanned outward, left hand shifting upward tiredly, and the essence of Transcendence responded so willingly that I shook with the force of a thousand waterfalls flowing into my soul. With the force of creation focusing on me.

It responded. It made me more than I was.

The feeling was sugar in my veins, an erotic pulse within my pants, a sensation so enervating that none could possibly comprehend how tempting it was to continue down the path of power. The sensations my brain could barely process seemed to seep from my spine to the soles of my feet, lifting me as the transcendence worked through my flesh and into the world. I, for a moment, was the fulcrum of power. Was power. The velvet on my tongue and behind my eyes was so sweetly seductive that no lover could match the embrace; it was inside each cell, each atom; the song of Transcendence was Inside me.

When it ended, all I could consider was how it had felt, how I could push myself into a situation where I would have to call on it again. All I knew was what had happened and what could happen. I was ruined in that moment, seduced in a span of time so infinitesimal as to be discarded.

Self-mastery came at a price. I latched onto that spark within my soul that yearned, that hungered. I reached within with a claw of malice shaped like a spike and ripped from my tender heart the desire that the Transcendence had given me. The desire to be loved; I drove it into the ground of my soul to be used as a foundation; a bull-work upon which to base future workings and walked away. I need not be loved. The effects of my working did not matter either; they were merely the beginning of a new me.

People flowed around me, shifting unconsciously from my uncaring path, dancing or talking or merely walking, all were affected. Even the blonde that seemed so entranced at first. It occurred to me, for a spare moment, how long it had been since I had beheld love or, more simply, lust in the eyes of another; the thought was banished quickly, just as efficiently as her roaming blue eyes were moving to another. My steps were drenched in my own suffering, the new working within myself causing my very essence to coil around itself in a display of serpentine longing. My eyes must have radiated that emotion so strongly that they seemed weak, must have wept sadness as a thunderstorm weeps cascades upon the world. My body posture must have lagged for a moment, fallen inward with such gracelessness that, to another's eyes, I may have seemed to vanish inside myself for a spare instant.

The tap on my shoulder was, amazingly, a surprise.

"Hey, Bud, where do ya think your goin?" The gruff voice that rang out was thick carnivorous overtones and overbearing fluff.

My turning head must have bothered the gentleman for all I was gifted with was a flash of thick, tattooed muscle before I felt an impact.

My body was shaken with the force of this behemoth's impact, taken back into a throng of people as casually as an empty box being thrown across a room. My landing was equally faulty; long legs curled like tinfoil beneath the banister that I was unfortunate enough to smash into and my spine snapped as my momentum wrapped me about that very same banister. I noted, serenely, that the banister was the same one I had been touching earlier and thought to myself about the irony of being broken by such a masterpiece. Then the pain came, not the physical pain, but the anguish in realizing my own mistake.

I had called a minor Seedling.

Sighing as my body shuddered, my lips covered in my life essence, I let go of consciousness as willingly as a lover would heal another, though in the last moment of awareness I did make a call; my lips had the power to form a single word. "Darian."

___

The awareness of water is one of sluggishness and depth, is one of constant movement and pride. The water that covered my still-robed flesh was as much a part of me as those very same robes. As much a part of me as the call, "Darian." I heard the Teacher call in a voice that ripped through my being with such fey distress that I knew something horrible was wrong.

My response was one that had been practiced rarely, for in the place we had gone there was no need for muscular action.

I gripped the porcelain that framed the moon-pool and stopped being Darian with a suddenness that must have made the people within the water start. Unless they were watching the body of the Teacher wrapped around the banister by the Seeded one. I wrapped my mind around one thought and held the flavor of that thought until it's essence became my own, until I could mimic the actions of that thought with perfect harmony and forget how worried I was for the people watching the results of the single punch from the Seeded one. Living weapon. Again, with more focus, Living Weapon.

And I was.

My vascular system stopped working in the first microseconds, and then, instep, each other bodily system began to halt. Heart, lungs then brain.

And so Darian died.

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Catherine watched the man she had been interested in wrapped around the wood with an almost electric shock. She had smelled him when he had passed her earlier in the entrance, his muskiness hyper-alluring to her type of desire, had noted his lack of interest in her bare thigh and well endowed chest. He had barely even glanced at her before disregarding her. His actions had only managed to spur her further into the jaws of desire. When he had disappeared, soon after her decision to have him, her gaze had been drawn to the giant of a man with serpent tattoos about his body. Her eyes for a moment wanted to see a display rather than a possible lover.

She had noted the man's black, soulless, eyes and pale flesh with the honest opinion that he was attempting to look like a ghoul. So many people in New York want to look like a dream that they actually prayed good money to turn fantasy into reality. Tattooing and body art were both hobbies of Catherine. She was at the club to do a bit of research, actually, into what the nightlife of the high-class clowns was turning toward.

To her unpleasant shock, research was not all she was getting. She felt disassociated with what she was seeing as one would feel after an automobile accident. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped as her sense of reality was torn asunder.

The body of the handsome stranger, wrapped around the banister, was being manhandled, pulled to pieces by the serpent-guy. His corded arms were moving around the stranger's arms and twisting outward, as if to wrench him into shreds. At least that would have happened if the Other had not appeared.

The flash of silver shot with red was a bullet in her vision, streaking at such amazing speed that her breath was stolen. The howling sounds from the serpent-guy tore at her ears and the feeling that wept from the scene ate at her heart. Her entire being quivered as she watched Something tear into the serpent man. It was at least eight feet tall, looming over the tattooed man, it sported hair that shot backward like knives from it's metallic skull and it's red-silver body seemed to flow bonelessly as it grappled with the smaller of the two. It occurred to her, then, that the contest was really unfair. The silver thing had hands that resembled razor shovels and was slicing through the other as easily as a knife through butter.

Amazing how quickly a life can be taken; two in the span of seconds.

____

"Az." I called softly from a throat constructed to screech rather than speak. "Az." I felt a tremor of fear inside the belly that had been crafted to house only anger and killing desire. My hands, fingerless, made to carve into an enemy like shovels, were useless; I could not stroke the hair from his broken face, nor could I caress his cheek for fear of harming him further. I also could not move his torn body anymore than I could become Darian again. People.

"Em.....Excuse me, Sir, Ma'am?" The soft voice seemed to lilt in my ears.

I turned smoothly, the top half of my torso rippling with velvet synth-muscle, and looked at the attractive blonde who had attempted to catch the Master's eye earlier. "Yes, M'lady?" I replied properly, despite the turmoil within my being.

"If you must go.... go, I can look after your...." Her words were shattered, line of thought decimated, by that which drove a pall of fear into my body; a feather to break my metal back.

I absent-mindedly noted that the Club was as empty as the hunger that now filled my body, while studying the new threat. Standing above the body of the Lesser Seedling was another, more powerful, Seedling. This one had streaks covering the bulk of its massive obsidian torso, each streak indicating an echelon of power earned. I managed to count at least thirty before I felt the full force of it's anti-Transcendence flow through the air.

My body shivered and shattered, flowing onto the ground at my feet uselessly. I was human, robes fitting snugly around my muscular form; naked against a Seedling. No power of mine could face this and a single blow from a lesser Seedling had seemingly killed the Master. How could we possibly survive?

We couldn't.

____ End.

Part 2.

Ebony body roped with black veins, crawling tendrils of adrenalin strength, the creature that hovered before Damian was impossible. Ten feet at the shoulder, with brilliant ruby eyes seemed to have a presence separate from its physical form. The shadows that scattered and danced beneath his unshod feet had malevolence that neither Catherine nor Darian had experienced in their relatively short lives. The snarl that seemed painted on its gruesome face was one of thoughtful foreboding and the half opened maw hinted at a hunger that went far beyond food; the four inch fangs and drool that smeared it's chin like honey dropped to the floor in piles that hissed and ate through the carpet. It was enjoying making its prey quiver.

Darian acted desperately, swinging around at the hips to grope for his Master, hand digging feebly at the carpet beneath his unresponsive leg. The Seedling reacted by swinging a halfhearted punch toward Darian. It was an act of such lightning force, an act of such impossible accuracy, that Darian could not dodge. The impact sent ripples through the air around Darian, the impact shattering bones to jelly as casually as one swats a fly.

Darian flew into the air above Azrof's head, toes and fingers' touching as his body was almost broken in half by the blow. He maintained consciousness long enough to feel the impact with the water he had just been swimming in. That which had just given freedom to his senses acted as a boundary into which they could not follow. Unconscious. In water.

Catherine, seeing no way out of the situation, looked toward the broken body of Azrof, silently begging the still form to breathe; silently hoping that a savior would come. When the Seedling before her moved his hand she did not sense it, did not know what was about to happen. Unconsciousness took her in a wave of acidic blackness that bore only pain rather than the soothing calm of sleep.

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Though my body is torn, I do not feel anger. Though my heart is rent from my chest, I do not feel angst's touch. Though my very soul aches from powerlessness, I do not let frustration overcome me; do not let the Transcendence within my being become tainted with selfish, falsely righteous rage. Yet when one I love is tossed about like a rag I tend to become a bit upset. Perhaps I am understating.

My Will, flowing on a river of Pure Transcendence, came crashing into my lax body with the full force of my wroth. My hands jumped upward as the energy searched out each broken juncture of life and brought light unto their absent, dark, death. The creature that stood before Catherine startled, turning toward my body curiously; I was dead wasn't I? My eyes, beacons that were normally unlit, bathed the creature with a red that could only be described as bloody. I awoke.

The creature reached down, as if to grip me, off-handedly. As though I was Darian. The thought drove me into motion before I had time to consider a course of action; I did what my body knew. Dragon block, the motion flowing outward with each hand an iron brace held at an angle away from my body, wrists rotating outward with a chill violence that could break steel. Or flesh. The noise that erupted from the air about me was the result of the block, a screaming similar to the ripping of steel cord. The impact seemed to mirror that sound, not to be the source of the sound. Bone became visible within a midnight flesh, only to heal instantly, flesh flowing like ichor back into place.

It felt pain. Its sickly red eyes widened in surprise, mouth letting loose a bellow of horrible anger as it shot forward with it's other hand. Quickly. The laziness it had evidenced for Darian vanished as it clawed for my jugular. The knife-like fingers toward my flesh with the power of a pile driver; a certain kill. If I had been there.

Psauron reflexes. My left foot slid forward and to the left on the floor, bringing my upper body aside the monstrosity, and my right hand shot outward, open fisted. My palm shot into the creatures solar plexus, knocking wind and flesh from its most comfortable position. Foul air spewed from the maw of the inhuman creature, showering my shoulder with acidic drool, drool that was happy to eat through my clothing.

The creature responded to the attack by shooting its knee upward at my belly; evidently it was determined to strike me. I was not in the mood to fulfill that desire.

Transcendent lunge. Instead of drawing away from the creatures knee I drew my fingers into a point against the creature's belly and dove inward, through the creature. I exited the gruesome body clean, clothing repaired by my Will, raven hair slicked back neatly. I ignored the sound of the dead body disappearing, the wailing hiss of it's death meaning nothing to me.

Darian was hurt. I closed my eyes, letting the velvet of my lashes stroke my cheeks into a meditation, and found him. In a healing sleep within the pool. I barely kept from laughing when I realized what the creature had done. Perhaps the creature was so unused to conflict that it did not know how to handle a Red Robed Enlightened One and perhaps that would explain why it had died so easily. The thought worried me for a moment. "If there are no more True Ones," I murmured thoughtfully, not wanting to consider that possibility.

Drawing away from my troubling thoughts I focused on the Transcendence, I drew Darian from water to haven. My home. Then, turning smoothly, I sent Catherine to a room close to his own. The air wavered a moment around her body, rejecting my will, then imploded with a velvet soft sucking sound. The space vanished for a moment, leaving a dark void, only to be filled with reality as quickly. Catherine was gone.

Sighing, I left the empty Club, prepared to clean up my own mess.

-

Part 3

The sibilant tones of the singer's voice pierced my dreamless sleep with the pervasive ease of a kiss. "Unbreak my heart....Say that you love me." My senses arose from the depths of nonbeing with a sluggishness that left me both confused and afraid. Where was I? Who was I?

My fingers curled about velvet and fluff, knuckling pillows so sweetly soft as to tempt more slumber from me. Darkness moved inward on my newly awoken senses, threatening to tame me before I was ready to give it a good go. Memory.

I recalled then; I remembered the last centuries in a flash that only near-sleepers have, as though my entire being was being poured back into my flesh from a gourd, my mental discipline became more real than any pillow. Eyes flashing open, showing me the truth, I whispered my name; something to cling to. "Darian."

Something to cling to; the room was ancient. I had to crane my neck to view all of it's sights and even then I felt as though the sleeper's illness caused me to miss much of it. Two large mirrors, decorated with coiling emerald serpents, framed the double doors that led from the high domed room. Turning my eyes to the left I saw an entire wall made of crystal clear glass, marred only with etchings that seemed all too real, dragons from myth, heros in armor and women gesturing grandly. All these things seemed to hide within glass, though the glass held more than images; it held a view, it's translucent surface falling away to demonstrate the beautifully manicured yard that hovered just beyond my light-sensitive eye's range. To the right of the doors was something resembling a clothing rack; a stand about ten feet tall that rotated on a dias with no wheel nor motor to turn it. The stand had my cloak. Ruby red cloth spilt to the ground before an armoire, kissing inch thick rugs, still five feet below the bowled out ceiling. Behind me was the wall my four posted, canopy, bed rested against.