What Remains of Nico Cinder

[Nico Cinder]

The leathery black book slammed shut with the familiar thwnk of pages and covers colliding into each other. The title, Nico Cinder's Survival Tips and Drug Trips: A Field Guide, was etched on the front in that shiny, golden tinsel material they use on bibles. The inaccuracies found within the Dante's Abyss chapters of this new 'survivobiography' were preeeetty abhorrent, like, downright unacceptable, bud. This simply wouldn't do; that ghost writer isn't worth a damn. Nobody could ever possibly hope to hold a candle to Jack's penmanship. Nico did concede, however, the illustrations and artwork found within were impressive and captured his dashing likeness quite adequately. The guitarist chunked the book over into the pile with the others. There were quite a few others. As part of the publishing deal, he and every member in the Cevanti Chapter of the Cult of Cinders received 'several' physical copies of the autobiography. Physical editions of books that didn't crumble to dust and ash were apparently a rare commodity in some parts of Markov, but not so much in others. Nico was still working out the details of his capital as he went along with things.

It had been an indiscernible amount of time since his timely explosion on live stream during Karl Jak's blood sport. An uncountable amount of people were watching the rock star's rise and fall amidst the tournament, and perhaps it is only natural that more than a few of them took a vested interest in the boy. So, it was much to Nico Cinder's disappointment that he 'awoke' one evening to visions of swirling hellfire and brimstone. When his sight was returned to him, he found himself to be lying on a fold-up table surrounded by solo cups filled with warm gas station beer. Upon the start of his heart, he sat upright gasping for air, knocking over several of the cups in the process. Judging by the crushed plastic he could feel on his ass, the cups appeared to be arranged in the shape of a pentagram. A circle of kids dressed in some ceremonial lookin' robes that looked a little younger than Nico stared at him in a starstruck awe.

"Dude, fucking hella!" an abnormally fucking ripped teenager said to the startled hell child. "Finally, I'll get to make some sick gains with Nico Cinder himself!"

Nico couldn't help but catch the hint of frat boy in that young man's voice. Troubling, to say the least. He makes the face of someone who just discovered spoiled milk in their coffee and rolls off of the beer pong table, spilling plenty of stale beer as he does. Thankfully, many of the cultists seemed to be the usual smattering of nerdy, metal, and/or hippie kids he was accustomed to hanging out with, and several of those kind helped the fallen musician to his feet. You think that someone would be thankful after being brought back from the dead, and, given Nico's er... 'circumstances,' you would assume this likely meant being brought back from eternal torment. You would be dead wrong on both accounts, in this specific situation. Unfortunately.

"Why the ACTUAL fuck," Nico slurs with a vengeance, "am I here?! And don't you dare fucking say to help this dickwad reach his weekly goals."

For a while, he would barely speak to anyone, or at least, acknowledge any of his loyal followers directly. He would mutter to himself or no one in particular about seemingly nothing, making strings and fragments of sentences that almost but not quite went together like "But why did I go to way back to no when," and "who brought me to have to it Different?"

"Dark, dark, dark," he had whispered at the time, "Dark. Dark. But not nothing. Not bad. Not bad for us." None of the college students that had been tasked with reviving him knew what the fuck he was talking about. More than a few drinks and smokes later, Nico couldn't be fucked to remember what he had been rambling about.

When his wits were about him again, Nico would learn of an interested party that had spent a considerable amount of money on what remained of Nico Cinder from the Dante's whatever-the-fuck. What remained of Nico Cinder was two slightly well-done canvas sneakers, frayed laces, dusting of ash and all. The interested party also happened to be a collective of edgy kids from all variations and walks of life that had come together under a common banner -- a Nico banner, apparently. His drug induced and explosive laced antics and ramblings had somehow inspired no small number of individuals across the multiverse to feel a strange, inexplicably strong affinity for the little punk. They called themselves the Cult of Cinder. Some of them were convinced the name was ironic, some of them were convinced it was sincere.

Currently, Nico had resorted to living in some sort of cultist coalition frat house. Or fucking something, he guessed to himself. The cultists, or "Cindies" as he had taken to calling them, were making a racket upstairs, no doubt getting blitzed and playing videogames or beer pong or fuck all else. Kicking himself up from the couch, he glanced lazily around the Cindy basement. In one corner, his previously decapitated guitar sat leaned up against the wall next to some pool cues and his magic skateboard. Apparently, when the resurrected Nico had been dumped out of the fire portal, the guitar shot out close behind him in an extra puff of smoke, fully repaired as if it had never been broken over some douchebag's head. The boy rubbed his temples; he was tired of having to use the word 'apparently' to patch up the holes in his memory. On a nearby ping pong table stood an impressive baker's dozen of molotov cocktails, whipped up entirely from hard liquor by the cultist frat house's resident alchemist. Supposedly, every branch of every chapter of the Cult of Cinders had a little red cook book chock full of explosive recipes. Very punk, very respectable, Nico thought.

There were a few more goodies scattered around the room, like half empty cans of spray paint and assorted drugs and alcohol. His mind drifted elsewhere, though, away from the clutter of his current surroundings and state of mind. He had to figure out another living situation, because this sleeping on the basement couch shit was just not gonna cut it. To change that, Nico figured he'd need some cash. The book deal and some of the online merchandise was most definitely a start, but most of the capita so far was going towards keeping things running. This whole network and brand presence kind of sprang up around him and into his lap, not really giving him a choice in the matter. Nico can't help but wonder if this is a common quality most cult leaders share. His cult had offered to start asking its members for donations, but Nico refused on the grounds of that being a fucking stupid thing for a good cult leader to do. His joint dragging him back to the present, Nico's eyes drifted from the fire bombs, to his guitar, to the skateboard, dancing around the room once more. At least he had options.

 

[Nico Cinder]

"HHHHHHHCCCKKKK!"


What a dreadful fucking taste to wake up to. The disgruntled guitarist spat his morning flavors into the sink. The bathroom he found himself in was minimalist, to say the least, sporting a toilet and a hand washing station, both hewn from a strange rocky material with a metallic sheen...and that was about it. Water spills from the faucet into Nico's cupped hands, and his muscles move on their own. The icy splash that follows is nothing short of painfully euphoric, which is generally how he likes his euphoria. After another cup or two (for his mouth this time), the young man kicks the nearest door open with a satisfying slam that sends some glass on the walls rattling. The door happened to lead to a bar, specifically behind a bar, more specifically, behind his bar. Sort of. Technically, he still had a few things to do before it was "legally" his, but that certainly would not stop Nico Cinder from claiming ownership of what was rightfully his. Probably.


The recoil from the door's beating at the hands of Nico's boot caused it to slam shut in it's metal panel, which sent even more bottles doing little dances in their display coves. One such liquor got a little too excited, the force of the shut door tilting, teetering the bottle over the edge of the abyss until it finally decided to jump, falling and flipping to certain doom in any case but this one. The would-be bartender catches his errant product without a second glance, spinning the bottle right side up with practiced ease.


"Got half a mind to audition for Dante the Demonslayer himself," he mutters to himself, inspecting the bottle. It glittered purple, but for some reason a lot of the liquor in this world glittered all kinds of different colors, not the usual luster and warmth of brown and gold that he was so used to. Even the clears here seemed to shine with a bit of added luster to their iridescence, and how something could be clearer than clear was entirely lost on Nico. Giving the spherical top one good twist, he elected not to think too hard about it.


*pop*

A hiss, and maybe something else, escapes.


"Salud. Sláinte. Prost. Etcetera, etcetera."

He makes it halfway through his first swig before the back door of the establishment is kicked open in similar fashion as the bathroom door moments before. In walks a tall, stony looking gentleman and an imperceptibly but definitely taller woman with flowing black hair down to her knees. It covers her, and she moves like shadows dance. The man doesn't so much as stomp as he does step very seriously. One sits on the left of Nico, the other on the right. It does not really matter which is on which side.

"Got a job for you and your Cindies, cousin," the man's voice was like a bottle of vodka. The woman was silent.

"Well, mostly for you. But they will be there in spirit, yes. Maybe you could make yourself useful, instead of drinking all our stock every night?"

Nico makes a face, capping the bottle and putting it back on the shelf.
"It's called sampling the product. Maybe you could actually make some sales if you knew what it was you were selling, Alexei."

"Companionship comes first. Customer base later. This is how business works," he says, nonchalantly.

"Okay, buddy. You keep telling yourself that."

"I will. And you keep up the good Lord's work." Nico chuckles at that one. There's a neon framed picture hanging crookedly somewhere in this bar of himself and a few Cindies fall over drunk around a junk sculpture of Nico. Curiously, said sculpture is nowhere to be found, despite it's lifelike size. Nico runs his thumb over a pentagram etched into the bar surface.

"Glad we've come to an understanding, then! What's this silly job you're talking about, you silly man?"

"You will not like it."

 

[Nico Cinder]

Of all the misguided degenerates to waste their time doing nothing, Nico was, perhaps, one of the few that was doing something with his nothing. Or...something. The bar was empty now, Alexei and his cohort made a quick exit after marking down the morning stock, taking their patron's "sampling" into account of course. Now Nico was left to pluck