V M An Arbiter's Rage (Unmaking Quest)

[Toga Voorhees]

With determined steps, I make my way through the dilapidated architecture of Markov. I've heard that, once upon a time, it was a grand city, but now it's little more than a city-sized pothole. The streets are lined with people, but there's something missing from their eyes. That spark of hope that even the worst-kept prisoner of war would still retain. These are people who were born into despair and hopelessness long before Darkseid's forces started beating at their door.

The glistening dome of bluish energy protecting Markov from the invaders flashed with light under the near constant attacks. Even so, no one so much as gives it a worried glance. After all, what fear would you have for an imminent death when you've been expecting the reaper your entire life?

On my home world, they called me The Black Swordsman. The Hundred-Man Slayer. The Leader of the Raiders. The Knight of the Hawk. My name is Guts, and I was all of these things and more… until the day when Darkseid arrived. On that day, my whole world was taken away from me. Not just the planet; everyone I had ever known or loved was stripped from me, as well. And the blame lay entirely on one man.

Griffith. I had called him Lord then. I had even called him friend. But it was his avarice and greed that opened our world to the threat of Unmaking. Darkseid may have been the instrument of our undoing, but the white-haired demon was the cause. And, for that, I'll kill him. I'll make him feel the pain of losing everything, even if I have to die making it happen.

Not that there's much I can do now about it. Stranded on Cevanti and down an arm and an eye. Not a single coin to my name. No friends or even allies to rely on. All I have left is the burning in my heart. Will it be enough to fulfill my quest? I don't know. But I move on down the fairway anyway. The city has nothing for me. But outside that dome of energy? Who knows.

 

[Domri Rade]

Domri angrily searched the scene where he was deployed. He was told that there’d be plenty of things to smash, but he couldn’t find a single thing to smash. He liked fightin alongside that robotic sheila, but she had to go and bail. Something about ‘saving a city’ or the likes. Domri shivered in repulsion. While she could throw a punch, she seemed like a bit of a dag.

Tusker nudged Domri’s arm and anxiously stomped the ground. Domri smiled, turning to his companion, and rubbed the beast’s nose. “Yeah, alright,” he softly chuckled. “What seems to be the problem?”

The creature snorted. Domri patted Tusker’s nose, to try and calm him down. His beast, however, began to flail wildly. It crushed into Domri, knocking him into the dust. Tusker continued to thrash, kicking and destroying trees and boulders around him.

“Oi!” Domri managed to wheeze out, the air knocked out of him. “Why’d you go bunta on me, you drongo?” He used his bone mace to help himself up, catching his breath. Time slowed down for a second. His vision turned red and the sky turned purple. Unbridled rage flowed through his system.

“Chaos and death,” he screamed at the top of his lungs, crushing any object that was in his field of view. Anything corrupt and unjust needs to be broken. This whole planet was corrupt. Domri wanted to bring the End-Raze to the whole planet, destroying its very core. He let out another scream.

It wasn’t his voice though. The pained voice of the planets arbiter overshadowed his tiny voice. The beastmaster clutched his ears in pain, afraid his eardrums would rupture. The sorrow and anger that the voice held, cleansed him of his own. In the brief moment of clarity, he looked around for his companion.

“Oi, mate. You ‘round?” he called out. “You know what’s goin’ on?” He only managed to take a few steps before the ground beneath him began to crack. From the corner of his eye, he saw Tusker come from a trail of broken trees. Instead of the fury that the beast had earlier, Tusker was frightened. It tried to reach Domri, but the ground that separated them cleaved in half. A large chasm, devoid of matter, separated beastmaster from beast.

“No worries, mate,” Domri shouted out. The ground behind him splintered, forcing him to already move on ahead. “Get outta here. We’ll meet somewhere in the bush.” The beast snorted in agreement before it took off.

Domri looked for some way to get out of this mess. Earth crackled and splintered as Domri leaped from rock to rock, trying to escape this bizarre earthquake. He jumped, but the earth gave way before he could land. Domri managed to clasp onto the cliff, but the rest of his body cracked into the cliffside. “That...hurt,” he choked out, struggling to get himself up and onto the ground. His muscles strained until he barely managed to get up. However, to his dismay, this even had gotten the attention of the blue beasts and they looked hungry.

 

[Toga Voorhees]

In stark contrast to the oppressive city-scape I'd left behind, the world beyond Markov's energy barrier was vibrant and alive. Beyond the battle-scarred "no-mans-land" which surrounded the city lay a vast, untamed wilderness. Trees reached for the sky as small, colorful birds flit back and forth through the canopy. A small smile somehow broke through the sea of anguish I held within as I saw freedom ahead of me.


Surprisingly, the guards watching over the gate leading from Markov hadn't put up much of a fight over my leaving. Or, rather, they were inadequate to the task of preventing my departure, as their bruised faces and egos could attest to. Raising the strange spear I'd "requisitioned" from one of them during our scuffle, I gave it a once over and a few practice swings and thrusts.


Little more than a metal pole, a small button halfway down it's length would activate the weapon, causing a blade of crackling blue energy to erupt from the tip. Long enough to be cumbersome with a one-handed wield, I nevertheless handled it well enough. It certainly wasn't my preference, but any weapon was better than none, so I resigned myself to deal with it until I could find something more my style.


A single further step towards the trees was all I managed before it happened. A wave of psychic torment and hate washed over my mind, so powerful that it completely overshadowed the aches and pains of my beaten body. Driving the butt of my spear into the dirt saved me from taking a tumble as I was overwhelmed by the feelings passing through me. For an eternity, the scream of Cevanti's Arbiter threatened to break my mind, but as it faded away I knew it couldn't have been any longer than a few seconds.


A few seconds of that had been enough to turn my knees to jelly, quicken my heartbeat, and make my breathing ragged. Had I been a more philosophical man, I might have wondered what would have happened to me had it lasted any longer. But, I'm not a philosopher. I'm a soldier. And, as a soldier, I set my teeth, steeled my resolve, and marched forward into the forest ahead.

 

[Toga Voorhees]

Well before my eye could see the danger, the brand on my neck alerted me to it. Waves of heat and pain radiated from the mark accompanied by a comparatively cool rivulet of crimson blood. Immediately my muscles tensed in anticipation, sending new flares of pain from my bandaged wounds, and it saved my life. As the ground beneath my feet began to crumble away, I was already moving. Spear held parallel to the ground, and eye scanning the trees for enemies, I rushed onward as Cevanti's flesh fell away into a dark, unknown abyss.


Within the shadows that lay between them, I could see the laughing face of my one-time master. Memories flooded in, prompted by painful nostalgia the pain for the brand brought to me. My body moved automatically as I ran, my mind distracted by the images of those I lost and how I lost them. Yet, determination and adrenaline can only do so much for a body as beaten as my own, and distraction was fatal on the battlefield.


As I closed in on the edge of a clearing, a jutting root caught my foot, sending me crashing to the rough, dirt floor of the forest. My spear went flying as I tried to use my one remaining hand to catch my fall. As I heard, and felt, the crack in my wrist, I knew it was a mistake. Fresh spots of blood spread out from my nearly full-bodied bandages, the red finding a home among the older browns and, now soiled, whites.


Even so, my instincts took over immediately, turning my fall into a roll which landed me in a low crouch. My pupil widened, taking in information as I saw what I had literally stumbled into. To my left, a man stood at the edge of a precipice. To my right, a pack of eldritch horrors reminiscent of my ordeals on Govermorne faced off against him. Voracious beasts, slathering at the mouth, and with squirming tentacles for a mane, the very sight of them would drive a normal man to madness.


But me? Well, they certainly were enough to make me mad, just not in the same manner. All pain fled to the back of my subconscious, like animals eager to escape the fires of my rage. My mind too was subsumed in the enormity of that hatred, and my fist clenched so hard that the bones of my wrist were forcibly snapped back into position. Breathing heavy, but teeth set in a rictus snarl, I stepped forward. A slam of my foot onto the butt of the spear brought my borrowed weapon back to hand in a manner which would have impressed a veteran entertainer.


These beasts… whether they belonged to Darkseid, or were merely unfortunate enough to have been born in that image… it didn't matter. I would kill them all.

 

[Toga Voorhees]

Crimson rage burned in my breast, and boiling blood pumped through my veins. I struck out at my aggressors, again and again, but... rage can only take you so far. The cobalt beasts darted to and fro, avoiding my attacks with ease. They were toying with me. Waiting for my wounds to weaken me. Waiting for my exhaustion to overwhelm me. Waiting for an opening. Waiting for the kill.

My eye catches sight of the man I'd 'rescued' from the attack, slinking away into the forest. A coward, but a smart coward. With each creature I wounded, two more seemed to spring up in its place. A pack of monsters, seeming to appear from nothingness. Just like he did. Darkseid. The... demon who took my world, no... he took everything away from me. New fury wells within my breast, and, finally, I strike a killing blow against one of the horrors.

They don't like this. Not one bit. Their circle tightens around me, and the once-toying passes of their wicked claws begin to find purchase in my flesh before I can turn to face my attacker. My escape is cut off, though I never considered running. Desperation ran alongside my anger, and I felled one or two others before a sinister slash to my knee buckled my leg. The last thing I saw, before the blackness of death, were the fangs of a beast before it closed around my head.