Saint Joseph School

And so too, the demon waited.

The smile that had held her lips until now began to fade into a cruel sneer. The air was permeated with the sensations of greed, anger, malice, and hatred. She was near delirious with it. She watched, patiently and silently as the woman placed herself into a large contraption, a similar one that imprisoned her dear boy. Lab attendents bustled about the room, seemingly oblivious to everything that truly began to transpire around them. So blind, so lost, so very very doomed.

She continued to watch as Misericorde began to shudder and writhe on the table, his movements mirrored by the woman on the other side of the room. Scythian could taste the pain on the air but she better than to rush fate. Her time was coming soon enough.

There was a loud mechanical noise that echoed from the bare, metal walls of the room. Hoses and pumps churned and whirred, bent on their task. Screens were monitored, levers and buttons manipulated in perfect precision, and lights glittered and blinked in a christmas display worthy of the damned.

It was his cry of anguish that finally moved her, finally set her plan into motion. Scythian slowly rose from the floor as she saw Misericorde begin to stuggle in earnest against the bonds that held him. His eyes were not open but his face was twisted...not in anguish, as expected by those present...but in absolute rage, as only the demon had predicted. She turned her head, only slightly, to see The Hand also moving against her bonds. However, it was with a look of triumph that Minerva began to rise from the table. She massaged her arms and neck, trying to work an untenable stiffness from them. She looked about the room, the attendents focused entirely on her awaiting her next words, the words that would spell victory for all of their mechanations.

The first countenance she wore was one of pity as she saw Misericorde still tensing against his prison, his eyes held tightly shut, as though he struggled against hell itself. In an arc of motion she made as though to go to him, to comfort him. But she did not. Her lips parted in what Scythian knew would be the order of his execution, but no words would come. The face of pity gave way to the visage of panic as the woman suddenly gripped onto her sides and nearly heaved with pain. She doubled over, struggling for air, her mouth attempting to speak but her body unwilling to give the pain a voice.

Minerva stuggled, against the strength of the panic, against the fierce power of the pain. Her compatriots rushed to her but she lashed out against them. She tried to stand and fell to one knee, gasping and trembling. "Wha...What..Is...thiiissss....."

Scythian moved from the shadows and into the dark light of the room. Minerva's head snapped up as she saw the deftly moving corpse glide form the darkness and come to rest at Misericorde's side. She placed a badly damaged hand on his sweating forehead and gently, almost tenderly, brushed a strand of hair from his eyes.

She looked over at Minerva, a cold, dead, stare burned into her mind.

"This is how you die."

A quick snap of her hand, the sound of wrenching metal, and Scythian set Misericorde free.

Misericorde uncoiled from the table, leaping past a pair of techs who might have been statues in comparison to his speed.

At some point, his claws must have been extended; they now gleam bright red in the flourescents of the place. The two unfortunate technicians tumbled together to the ground, almost intimately.

He set about dissassembling the rest of the occupants of the room mechanically, sparing none. Desiring no mercy and offering none in return.

Minerva blinked in disbelief and pain. He should be dead! She opened her mouth to speak, and for a moment, only a thick line of spittle fell, rather than words. She coughed and almost retched. The pain was so intense...why wasn't she healing? Why wasn't she regenerating? Was the nanocolony not the source of his abilities? Why wouldn't it work?

Scythian stepped back with a sly smile and faded into the shadows of the room, as Misericorde dispatched the panicked technicians impassively. He was an engine of murder.

Minerva stumbled and fell to her knees as the Knives slowly attacked her nervous system, carried in their awful work by her very blood. The nanocolony she'd extracted from Misericorde tearing through her body and brain as efficiently as he tore through her mercenaries.

"Regeneration...he's vulnerable...take him...now..." she uttered, crawling for the charge button for the EMP generator.

In response, the remaining members of the staff formed up behind Misericorde as he busied himself with a pair of unfortunates trained well enough to delay the inevitable for precious moments.

They raised tranq rifles and fired, the rapidfire pops of automatic tranq darts peppering him with the slim vials of tranquilizer rounds. His back a swarm of blue-vialed syringes, he fell to his knees.

For a moment.

Then he stood and spun, the photocells innate to his body firing, body shimmering with the eerie green distortion of the surrounding air. The armed scientists and mercs fired again as he sprang, then swung lazily to the left, flanking the group, cutting them down where they stood.

Minerva grimaced with pain as he turned to face her, bristling with tranq darts. She chuckled, or tried to, managing only a dry cough as she placed her hand to the firing button of the EMP. The nanocolony was -not- the source of the regenerative abilties of Michael Corde. Nor did it provide him with his knives.

This was his secret. He was a container, a vessel; a weapon, but not as intended. His knives, his claws...the real Knives were this Nanocolony. Not a boon to the user, but a Plague. Billions of tiny knives that would tear you apart from the inside out. Breaking you down. To make more Knives.

His regeneration was kept in balance by the Knives. The Knives were prevented from escape by his regenerative state. And his claws were there to protect him from harm. As was...his Machine. The brutal engine that protected his mind from the atrocities he must commit to contain the weapon. The Knives.

The Machine that stood before her now, and kneeled, looking emotionlessly into her eyes.

Without warning a flicker of recognition passed over him, and he placed a palm to the side of her face. It was Michael, but different. Not the hyperactive schoolboy, or the emotionless engine that drove him. It was...both.

"I warned you Minerva. The Knives...aren't me." She stared at him dully, willing her hand to move on the button, but it wouldn't. She was too weak. Her hand hovered over the EMP generator, designed to neutralize the nanocolony should it get it into the open air, or try to reproduce. Her head...hurt so badly. She imagined the nanites inside her, disassembling her brain.

Misericorde smiled then, placing a hand over hers. He slowly slid into a seated position next to her on the floor; apparently the tranquilizers were finally taking their toll. "I forgive you," he said, and pressed her hand down upon the EMP generator. They were plunged into silence, and darkness, as they slipped into unconciousness.

Somewhere in the shadows, the demon smiled.

Nearly a half hour passed in silence before she stepped from the shadows and crossed the metal room without sound or whisper. Her time had now begun. This was not to be the end, only the means to an end.

He lay still and quiet, for once, a look of calm across his usually tense features. The woman who lay next to him stirred, but only shuddered and moaned.

The demon-born knelt before the pair and arched her lithe body over Minerva, resting her lips near her ear.

"Thank you, my darling." She whispered. "Now all shall be as it must."

The Hand of Artemis trembled, her eyes opened but her body refused to comply with her wishes.

"You...." She grated, "I...I...won't...won't let you...do...this...I...know..."

Scythian smiled a knowing smile and raised her burned and mangled hand into the air, her opposite hand gently resting a finger against Minerva's quivering mouth. As her fingers curled into a fist, the grey mist of a blade coalesced into her hand, shimmering with translucent light.

"I'm afraid, you will be the instrument of it, child."

In one fell stroke, Minerva was no more, and Scythian's revolution was about to begin.

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Misericorde, no...Michael awoke suddenly to the sounds of....birds. Soft light streamed through the window of his quad and he could vaguely hear the bustle of his quad-mates as they prepared for early classes. He shifted uncomfortably. He was naked, wrapped in a sheet, and he felt strange. His skin felt warm and slightly sticky, as though he had been engaged in a heavy workout without showering. He could see a few stray droplets of blood still clinging to his skin, his hair was a mess, and he felt sore. Parts of his torso and thighs were still moist.

It was then he noticed a pale, neatly folded piece of paper resting on his bedside table. He didn't want to pick it up, but he did. The words were simple.

Good Night, Misericorde....I will miss you.