(Double XP) The Fisher King

The homeless are the unseen watchers of the streets. New Yorkers will walk past thousands of homeless people without ever giving them a second thought, this was something Remedy used to his advantage. He couldn't be everywhere at once and private investigators could only do so much. But no one ever suspected the homeless. Over the years, Remedy had created a network of vagrants throughout major US cities, he provided them with access to shelter and food, they gave him intel on crime in the city. Despite being abroad most of the time, Remedy had to keep his ear to the ground in his homeland, and the crime syndicates in the major US cities were posing more and more problems. It wasn't hard for one of his informants to take part in a drug deal, the dealer led to the supplier, the supplier led to the manufacturer, and the manufacturer led to the kingpin. It was a system Remedy had used for years, so long that he knew most of his informants personally, so he'd notice if one of them went missing.

There had been a problem with disappearing homeless in New York for a while now, Remedy chalked it up to a serial killer looking for kicks. He wanted to intervene but he had more pressing matters to attend to. Now it was different, a man who had been giving him valuable information for 15 years had vanished and he'd spent the last 4 months trying to trace the scent. He'd finally had a breakthrough, a tip has come through that suggested the kidnapper was a metahuman. This changed everything, not only did Remedy need to get his informant back, but there was a metahuman serial killer on the loose, which suited his skill set perfectly. Cross referencing the various metahumans he had on his database, he'd narrowed it down to a man called Samuel Crane, who he had scarcely any information on at all.

Normally, Remedy would find out everything he could about a metahuman before engaging with them, but he couldn't let one of his men die, he didn't need another ghost haunting him. He'd tracked Crane to an abandoned sanitorium. Seaview Hospital in Staten Island had been used for treating tuberculosis, but was now an eerie graveyard of old wheelchairs and bed frames. As he made his way through the various wings of the building, it was hard to tell if the screams he heard were real or not, but he followed them anyway, that was until he heard the sound of running water and turned around to see what looked like a tsunami coming straight at him.

Filthy. Asylum clung to the rafters of the ceiling of old Seaview Hospital. His thoughts raced, crashing against the shores of his self esteem with self-criticism, doubt. Meanwhile his body hung lifeless, suspended like an inanimate marionette by the straps of his suit. Worthless. He continued to berate himself. It was the neveredning cycle of self inflicted harm which he endured. Indulge in his habit, feel the rush of pleasure, then immediately regret. The crushing unimaginable guilt. Even knowing the pain that would come afterwards he seemed to have no choice in the matter. Stupid. Yes he was, battling himself as he thought on his current victim.

A muffled whimper roused him suddenly from his spiral of self-loathing. The sounds of the latest victim bounced with a sharpness off the eerily still sanitarium. They seemed to beckon him "come to me" the struggles of a frightened and confused man called to him on the wings of angels. Yes, he had to do it. The man was awake now. He would begin to realize where he was, might even put together the type of building. He could not be allowed to live, not now. At least it made the decision easier. Now not only a release from his pain but self-preservation were the drives for the soon to be killing.

Sam's body still limp lowered slowly, still suspended by the ever stretching straps of his suit. A slight chill ran up his spine as his bare feet touched cold cement. The snakelike of his suit slithered back to him, wrapping themselves about his arms and torso, comforting him in their embrace. Then quickly they would snap away. Buckles and belts clanging to the floor as Sam ceased his control over them. The cacophony rang around him, sharpening his focus.

His buckles scraped against the bare floors as he slowly inched his way to the basement of the abandoned asylum. All the while the man in the basement's muffled screams grew louder. It drove Sam man. He was like a beast now, a shark with the smell of blood in the water. But as he approached the door behind which his victim was bound, Sam heard another noise. Foosteps.

His head was on a swivel, immediately turning back up the stairs where he had just come from. He stood there completely still, unable to move. Someone else was there, he could hear the scrapes of their boots on the floor. Someone is here he told himself again, his heartbeat in his ears seemign to sync with the pace of their walk. For an eternity it seemed he stood there, paralyzed by the fear that he had been discovered. Move you idiot, MOVE! He was screaming in his mind now. Action was his only option. So when his feet would not carry him, the suit reacted instead, lashing out the exposed roof and hoisting him to the ceiling once more.

The straps of the suit seemed to operated independently of Sam, crawling him like a spider in the direction of the noise. Then all at once his unwelcome guest came into view. He appeared military. I've been discovered. Dread filled Sam, creating a pit in his stomach which threatened to swallow him whole. Without another thought, he lowered himself silently to the floor behind the man. A nearby sink would serve as his distraction, his attention grabber.

Turning it with force, the loud squeak of metal against metal ripped through the quiet. Immediately the man turned, locking eyes with Sam before he ever even realized it. Tendril-like straps reached out from Sam to support the man as his body fell limp. Meanwhile Sam's mind and Remedy's were becoming one. The darkness inside him engulfing this new prey, seeping into every pore...

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Water. Water was always a good choice. Drowning was a fundamental fear and Remedy's mind would already be on the topic of water after hearing the faucet. From the hallway behind him a wave of pitch black water came rolling with a vengeance. Bubbles foamed and hissed angrily from the encroaching mass as it overtook the man. Immediately Remedy would feel an intense pressure as he was swallowed in the wave. His ears would pop and eyes would feel as though they were being pressed into his skull. He was deep beneath the surface now, sinking like a lead weight. Were he to look up, he would see the ever fading light of a full moon flickering above him. Bedframes and wheels chairs and all manner of rusted and twisted metal would sink around him, remnants of the reality which he had previously known. Swim a voice inside his head would command, Sam's own influence, but to Remedy it would sound like a drill sergeant or perhaps a commanding father. No matter how horrible burning in his lungs or the chill in his bones from icey sea he would not be allowed to give up, not yet.

Remedy had no idea what happened, all he knew was that he was engulfed in water and was fading fast. "Is this how it all ends? Was this always my fate?" His thoughts went to everything he'd accomplished in his life. Saving child soldiers in North Africa, destroying drug cartels, stabilising war-torn countries. But his mission wasn't over, in a way, it would never be over, but he wasn't going to die now, he'd defy God himself if he had to. "Swim." It was his father, his mentor, his conscience, hovering above the surface extending an arm. Remedy tried in vain to push his body through the water, but his legs were clasped by ice cold hands. He looked down to see thousands of bloated corpses reaching towards him, pulling him under. The ghosts of his past were taking their revenge.

Remedy hacked their hands off with his knife as the water turned thick and red, as if he was submerged in an ocean of blood. "Why did you do it, John? Why did you let us die!?" John, no one called him John, John Fisher was buried 25 years ago. Then the horror struck him, he saw himself in the murky blood-filled water. Not Remedy, John Fisher, the face he once had before he destroyed his old identity. But it wasn't the young, naive man who had yet to experience true horrors, it was a rotting corpse, unkempt, uncared for, alone.

"They're dead, all of them, and I'm about to be if I don't swim, have to swim." Removing his gear which was quickly torn apart by the apparitions below, Remedy's cold, naked body swam for what seemed like an eternity. Every muscle in his body ached with intensity, a feeling he couldn't even remember since the experiment. His head finally broke the surface as he gasped for air like a thirsty man gulps water. Ironic, considering the circumstances.

Something was wrong, his hallucinations had never been this severe before, and none of his self-imposed mental blocks had worked. He'd almost forgotten what he used to be, how was he visited by the body he inhabited in his past life? But that was only the start of his problems, he wasn't in the hospital any more. He was in the middle of the ocean, naked, cold, alone, and powerless. He couldn't see his father, he couldn't see anything other then endless sea, was this the end of Remedy?

Fear and guilt poured off of Remedy like a heavy fog. His mind was collapsing on itself, reacting to the dreamworld and populating itself with his own fevered inner terrors. It was perfect. This guy, this Remedy...no not Remedy, John, yes his name was John. As the spectre of his father spoke the name the ghost of that persona became known to Sam. It was gold, he practically drooled at the revelation. This guy was more fucked up than even he was, with decades of regrets and atrocities under his belt. And Sam it seemed didn't even need to force the terror on him. John was perfectly capable of torturing himself, conjuring up an army of wronged dead from the black depths of his mind. It was truly a gift that Sam had been given and already he was feeling foolish for his fear. This would be his most treasured plaything to date.

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As John (Sam now refused to think of him otherwise) surfaced from the depths into the cold black night the entire environment would seem to vibrate. A low buzzing pulsing over the water as Sam grew excited. It was not intentional on his part, an involuntary reaction to his own joy at the fun he was already having. Focus he thought, both to himself and in the voice of John's father.

The light of the moon shimmered against the choppy waters still threatening to reclaim John at any moment. From his location, bright refracted light would quickly flash a jagged path through the water as though a spotlight were projected from the moon off in the distance. Its light would trail almost out of eyesight before cascading over the distinct figure of a distant landmass. Then the seemingly targeted light would disappear as though it were never there leaving John with a single option, a single direction should he not wish to perish here beneath the ever intensifying surf.

He felt like he was swimming in tar, but this was not how Remedy would die. He would die in the line of duty, that was his destiny, he was owed that. Nature wasn't going to take that from him, a soldier dies with a rifle in his hands and boots on his feet. "Focus." His father was there again, willing him on like he always did, but what good would focus do? Remedy estimated he could probably swim 50 miles before succumbing to exhaustion in his current state. In any other circumstance, he could swim hundreds, but he felt weaker than he'd ever felt.

That's when he saw it, a ray of light that appeared to come from the Heavens. Remedy had never believed in God, but that didn't mean he wasn't real. Was this some kind of plan? Was God revealing himself to a man in his 40s who had never even set foot in a church or gave thanks before a meal? It didn't matter, spiritual reflection could wait, right now, Remedy was looking at land. Could be an island, could be a coast, it was impossible to tell. "Should've kept the Omni-Eye.", he lamented on his discarded equipment that really could have helped him ascertain just what he was looking at. Right now though it could have been a POW camp for all he cared, he would be able to live on land, he would die in the ocean.

And then it was gone, as if it was some kind of projection on a movie screen that had been turned off. Movies, when was the last time he saw a movie? He loved movies, they were what inspired him to learn to fight, but he never stopped fighting. It must have been Aliens in 1986, he was back home for two weeks to visit his parents, taking a break from his training. It had been seven years since the last movie, which his dad let him watch when he was just 10 years old, needless to say, it scared the crap out of him. The thrill of getting into an R-rated movie when you're just 15, he'd always looked older than he was. And what a movie, he instantly connected with the idea of a platoon of soldiers being pinned down by an unstoppable enemy. They were picked off one-by-one and died as heroes. What a hill to die on, was this land he saw his hill? All he knew is that he'd rather die dry than wet.

"On your feet, soldier!" Now there was a voice he hadn't heard in a long time. His boot camp drill instructor, gunnery sergeant Bruce, the man who taught him what it meant to respect your adversaries so you could overcome them. Right now, death itself was his adversary, Remedy was going toe-to-toe with the Grim Reaper, his toughest opponent yet. But if there was one man who could tell death that it couldn't touch him, it was Remedy.

So he swam, he pushed, he fought, hurtling towards the unknown, ready to embrace what it had to offer. After what felt like hours, he crawled his way onto the beach of what was thankfully an island and not a place where he would be recognised and captured. But now there was another problem, he had no gear, no way of contacting anyone, nobody knew he was here. In an ironic twist of fate, he'd dropped off the face of the Earth for the second time, only now he wanted to crash back through the atmosphere and finish what he started. He'd have to revert back to something primal, muster every survival technique he'd learned in his 20s. He'd have to create snare traps to capture his food, build shelter from raw materials. He just hoped there was some kind of fresh water source on the island or he'd be dead quickly. The thirst was taking him over, he had to find water, he had to live. He wasn't going to die now that he was here, he was going to survive, even if it meant spending his final years here.

The island itself was maddeningly small. If unobstructed, a man walking could make it from shoreline to shoreline in just over three hours. But going unobstructed would in no way be possible. The beach on the south side which Remedy had come ashore on stretched for about two hundred yards before it rose quickly in a three foot incline to dense jungle. Even no out by the water Remedy would be able to hear the insects buzzing angrily from within the lush undergrowth. Their calls ebbing and flowing much like the tide as they sang out their unending thrumming chorus.

Even in the moonlit night, the jungle's foliage woucl create quite the barrier to sight. Try as he may, Remedy would only be able to see about ten feet through the trees before the dense foliage completely obscured his view. But if his sense were good he would know that he was already being watched. If his nose was not too stung from the salty ocean he, would smell it first, the thick smell of decaying flesh being wafted down from somewhere in the treeline by the ocean breeze. Then would come a rustling noise, muffled against the crashing waves on the shore. But there was no sign of movement. Whatever was stalking him clearly knew what distance to remain at to stay unseen. So here he was, stranded, alone naked in a harsh and unexplored environment. And already, he was on the menu. Happy hunting.

This island was challenging him. Remedy found himself faced with everything he wasn't properly equipped for. The darkness engulfing him was all-encompassing, it was consuming his soul. "Gotta drink, gotta eat." He was dying, he could feel it, he'd been close to death once before, it was an impossible feeling to forget. "Must hunt, kill, consume the flesh, drink from the spring." You had to think like an animal catch one, you had to become it, wear its skin around yours. Which reminded him, he was naked, if the thirst or the hunger didn't kill him, then the cold would. If he could find something large enough, perhaps he could fashion its pelt into clothing.

The jungle was closing in around him, he could have sworn it was growing inward, each branch and vine coiling, threatening to pull him in. Visibility was poor, he must have been walking for 2 hours by now and daybreak was yet to come. There was a certain helplessness to not knowing the time, Remedy's life was governed by precision, being in the right place, hitting all the right marks, knowing how long you had to complete a task. All that had been stripped away now, right now his only worldly possession was a piece of slate he'd found on the floor. He was able to sharpen the slate into a makeshift knife using a rock, although it would prove little use against anything larger than say, a wolf. And where had his powers gone? He couldn't generate force fields and he barely had the strength to shift the foliage in front of him. He'd been powered longer than he hadn't been, is this how limiting it felt? He would surely die soon.

Not everything was lost though, powers are acquired, endowed upon you, skills don't go away. His conscious meditative abilities had been applied originally to drown out the rattling racket of the insects on the island. A symphony of ticks and patters that were driving him mad. Now his sharply focused ears brought awareness to something that frightened him. He was being watched, by what, he could not say, but it was out there. He'd ruled out enemy snipers, he was too easy a target, he would have been dead hours ago. He was being toyed with, whatever was out there wanted him to suffer, what foul beast was he to encounter?

SQUELCH, Remedy's foot felt the thick, cold grip of a muddied puddle, a grip that quickly became a hand, one that was pulling him in. "No! NOOOOOOO!" His screams were heard by no one as he was enveloped by the small pool of water he'd stepped in. Now there was pure darkness, the forest was gone, it was as if existence itself had vanished. That was until the familiarity of his predicament seeped in. Remedy was underwater again. Something was different though, he wasn't drowning, in fact, he could breath. He wasn't wearing any kind of diving gear, actually he was still naked. But there he was, his feet planted firmly on the ocean floor, a vast, black ocean stretching out before him.

Moving took a herculean amount of effort, any attempt to swim to the surface resulted in being dragged down by an invisible force. Step by step, Remedy was sure he was dying, whatever he was being stalked by on the island had gotten him and this was what his mind would go through before his body gave out on him. Then a stinging sensation came to his right foot, he'd stepped on something firm. Christ, the pain, it was like stepping on a LEGO brick. But upon bending down and feeling the object, he knew exactly what he'd stepped on, the Omni-Eye! Whatever was happening, at least he'd be able to see it himself. Remedy was so preoccupied with putting his trusted visual enhancer on that he didn't even stop to think that it couldn't possibly work at this depth. So when the night vision kicked in without any problems, he didn't even stop to question it.

The true horror sunk in at that moment, perhaps he was better off blind. The ocean floor was littered with terrifyingly disfigured corpses. Thousands upon thousands of people, each with their own life and story, people that had died by his hand. There were children who had perished when he failed to convince an arms dealer to cease his operation in Afghanistan, who in turn sicced his child soldiers onto Remedy, forcing him to kill a group of kids no older than 8. He saw his entire WOLF unit, with their bullet-ridden corpses twitching as if they had just been shot all over again. Many he couldn't even remember, probably because he'd chose not to, now it was all coming back. He couldn't take it any more, breaking down to his knees and getting even closer to the dead, the terror was set in. Remedy screamed, he screamed louder and harder than he ever had. No sounds could be heard underwater, and the tears he shed could not be seen. He tried to rip the Omni-Eye from his head, not wishing to see any more, but it was stuck to his cranium like a vice. Pulling with all his strength, the burning pain hit as the device was ripped from his head, taking most of his face with it and exposing his skull. The screaming continued as Remedy succumbed to the pain, his exposed jaw locking open like a door bashed from its hinges. This was where he was to die, amongst the bodies of his dead.

How long he'd been passed out for, he couldn't say. All Remedy knew was that he was waking up in a puddle, trembling and crying. Whether it was pain or sorrow, he didn't know, those were things he'd ignored for decades. It was still dark, hell, it actually felt like it was even darker, but it was still better than total blackness, where he didn't know what horrors lurked around him. Gulping up the filthy water in the puddle might have been the worst idea he'd ever had, but the thirst was uncontrollable at this point. Remedy felt the water rush through his system and refresh him, a feeling that lasted roughly 3 seconds before he vomited most of it up. It was filthy water, what did he expect? He barely had the strength to walk anymore, but he could crawl, yes, he would crawl. He would crawl forever until he found something, he could sense the creature that was watching him closing in, creating distance was all he could do. And so, broken, alone and terrified, Remedy began to crawl, his life was in the balance.

A puddle. Asylum had nearly drowned this man, stranded him naked on a deserted island and was stalking him with an unknown entity and it was a puddle that sent him spiraling out of control. Honestly this man was almost more of a danger to himself that Asylum was. That puddle sent him spiraling down into the depths, dragged to a drownyard filled with the victims of his military career. I can use these. he thought looking over the various contorted faces of the dead and dying. These people clearly had an effect on the man as he crumbled into a quivering mass on the ocean floor. There he faded into darkness before once more awakening on the ground.

The moon still hung in the sky when he awoke, but had sunk further towards the coast in his time in the dream within a dream. But now, for all intents and purposes he was back in reality, back on the stranded beach. Asylum could feel the thirst cracking his lips as he Remedy drank from the pool and quickly expelled the contents of his stomach. This was wonderful, this man was literally killing himself. But his determination was unwavering, dragging his naked body across the jungle soil. But he was no the only thing crawling across the jungle floor. Once more he would be able to hear the intense buzzing, chittering from before but louder now. A scuttling swarm was approaching drawn in by the scent of his sweat and fear. That would be when he would hear it again, the rustle of leaves, the snap of a twig. His stalker was on the move.

Closer this time, a branch would crack underfoot not twenty yards from his position. By now he would be able to smell the thing. It was the smell of wet, dirty fur, unmistakably pungent, like the thing had been wallowing in the muck all day. Were he to look to their position he'd see a flash of movement in the underbrush from his prone position. But it was not an animal's paw that he would see. No, the flash of a military style black boot would shine clear for just a moment as his stalker raced past him in the thickness. Yet in spite of John's vulnerable position the thing, or man did not stop to exact whatever grisly plans they had for him. Instead this mystery entity was crashing through the woods past him, the sound of their movements quickly being drowned out by the still approaching buzzing. No visual was available yet but the sound clearly indicated that these things were moving on wings, and quickly. He would need to act fast, or the stinging swarm woudl be on him in less than a minute. All around him lay thick jungle and the muddy deer trail which he was currently on. Think fast Asylum commanded in whatever voice Remedy wanted most to hear. This was quite fun for him, but he was only just beginning.