Rising up on Blackened Wings

Jeramiah's chest hurt, Anu had used that ambrosia formula on him several times since they'd escaped back to her New York apartment. He was in intense pain every day and the Ambrosia was one of the only things that lessened it. He would need to find a way to either make it himself or find a substitute, despite his loyalty to her, such a glaring weakness could be detrimental in the long run. He sat up, his arms felt like they were made of lead. Jeramiah looked around at all the plants in the room. How many of them could probably kill him if he wasn't careful?

Jeramiah tried to stand up and winced, shutting his eyes tight. The image of his wife and daughter melting had disappeared and been replaced by images of them dying in various other ways. He hoped that the images would disappear completely with time. He tried to take a step forward and collapsed. "God dammit!" he yelled. The pain wasn't the issue, but he was sick and tired of feeling helpless, it was something he hated almost as much as the thought of dying. He stood up again, this time allowing his legs a little time to adjust, and moved towards the couch. He collapsed onto it and turned on the TV. It was one of those things that he was amazed by. Back when he was still a young man this would have been called magic, now it was something everyone had.

"I wonder when she'll be back with my gear" he mused. Jeramiah knew of a technique to bind his life force to an object, it was something similar to the way he bound the souls of the hellhounds to the Fenrir shells. He hadn't done it on this level before but it was his only choice. His limbs were near worthless and he would never die naturally, so if he wanted to live at least a partially normal life he would need to do this. Jeramiah looked at the door again as he heard a sound coming from outside.

"Excellent!" Jeramiah said, elated. He was overjoyed that she'd gotten it. He stood up again, ignored the immense pain he felt. Jeramiah picked up the armor and limped over to the table where he had tools prepared for the ritual.
"M'lady, please stand back." he said as he began to inscribe the runes onto the armor. the soldering tool burned the unholy words into the armor's plates and bindings. Jeramiah smiled, his hands -despite their burns- glided over the armor with ease. He'd practiced this in his head. He turned to Anu. "M'lady, please draw this on the floor" he said indicating a piece of paper on the table. "It needs to be about 5 feet in diameter. Thank you" he added before turning back to his work. In a matter of minutes he had finished his work. He sat back in his chair and looked at Anu. "Thank you M'lady, with this, you'll have a general that cannot be defeated." he said, smiling.

"Now, let's begin the ritual" he said as he donned the armor. putting it on was a far lengthier process than it should have been, mostly due to his injuries and burns. Once he had it on he stood in the circle Anu had drawn on the ground and began reciting the spell, the words echoing out of his mouth in a voice that spoke with several others behind it. Smoke began to rise from the circle, his armor began to drip a black liquid which evaporated when it touched the ground. The circle began to glow with a a red light as waves of energy swept off of it, a strange black liquid rising from it and floating around him a few seconds before slipping into the armor's joints. It went on like this for roughly an hour until finally Jeramiah was encased entirely in a black orb. The light from the circle slowly faded and the orb, its surface like black glass, began to crack and melt away. There stood Jeramiah, his armor glowing with a dark light, and a strange black smoke rising from it.

"I live again, M'lady" he said, his voice appeared to have a markedly deep quality to it, in addition, a strange whispered echoed in its wake. "I am ready to serve M'lady, and I shall not be defeated ever again" he chuckled, a sinister voice echoed behind his own. He removed his helmet and looked at Anu, completely unaware of his altered eyes. His face looked remarkable, the burns were gone and any trace of scars had been removed. He looked... rejuvenated, instead of appearing in his late forties, he appeared some ten years younger, his black hair no longer streaked with the gray of ages, instead it was a perfect, abyssal, black. "Shall we go?" he asked, before saying "I wish to test my new found...abilities" the whisper following his voice betraying his glee at his new form.

Jeramiah smiled and walked out the door behind Anu and placing his helmet back on his head. "I have the perfect idea" he said, the whisper behind his voice echoing a sinister motive. He walked down the stairs and into the streets. He looked as people turned their heads away from him. The armor was intimidating to be sure and he was satisfied with that. He had obtained new powers and he wanted to test them, but not on innocent people, no matter how badly he wanted to test them, innocents were not targets. "I think I might need some clothes" he said, repressing a grin. Not that anyone could tell if he was grinning behind his helmet, but it couldn't hurt to keep himself restrained. Jeramiah turned and looked at Anu, who seemed perfectly natural walking next to him, even if he was a good foot taller then her.

"Who to test it on I wonder?" he asked, more to himself than to Anu. "Perhaps I should have found something less conspicuous to wear" he laughed, though in truth he only needed to wear one piece of the armor for its power to work, he enjoyed the fear he was causing. If he wanted to be inconspicuous he would just wears the boots or the gloves, but for right now it was best to let his soul get accustomed to being in the armor rather than in him. Jeramiah didn't feel in pain anymore, in fact, he felt stronger than ever. As they walked, Jeramiah made some turns so that they ended up in the poorer districts, he was sure that some homeless man or another would be desperate to attack them, the TV seemed to make out all homeless people to be violent criminals of one sort or another. That reminded him of the man who had put him in the hospital, though he didn't remember exactly how he got there "M'lady, if we ever meet that man again... may I kill him?" Jeramiah asked, the whisper following his voice radiated a mix of hatred and anticipation.

The sun was low in the sky when they finally stopped; looking around, Jeramiah saw they were in some sort of shanty town on the outskirts of the city. "I'm sure there must be some sort of criminal filth willing to attack us" he said sighing. Almost as if responding to his will a blunt object smacked into his back. "Speak of the devil and he shall appear, so they say" he said, turning towards the source of the attack. It was a small man with a rat like face. The 'blunt object' in question was actually a large knife, the blade on it bent and broken. "My, my, my. You're a little worm aren't you." Jeramiah said, no longer repressing his grin. Before the man could respond Jeramiah had punched a hole straight through his head. "gute nacht" he said as he retracted his hand from the man's now hollowed out skull, the blood covering his gauntlet seemed to disappear within its abyssal black metal. "Well we're going to have to do something about the body" Jeramiah chuckled as black smoke began to pour from his hand over the man's body. He quickly stopped producing it and watched the existing smoke settle and dissipate. When it was gone, so was the man's body and good portion of the street below it.

"Shall we go home now, M'lady?"

Jeramiah enjoyed the walk even if nothing exciting had happened yet, which in fact was actually a minor relief, aside from the homeless man, their little adventure out into the city had not been interrupted by any heroic types trying to bring Anu in for some thing or another. Looking out at the vastness of the city, he thought about all the people living there. While attaining one hundred thousand followers in his day and age was a task only possible with the greatest of generals, here, it was so easy that even the most idiotic child could do so with the click of a button. He would need those followers, so would Anu, but for a different reason. She could have them, but once she was done with her little empire building exercise he had a different idea in mind. He felt himself coming back more and more.

Ever since he had first escaped that bitch's mansion and up until Anu got him his old armor, he felt as if he had been in a daze, almost like someone had pulled a glamor over his eyes, but Jeramiah was slowly coming back, piece by piece. The war weary idealist Anu had recruited was disappearing. Whoever that man was... it wasn't me Jeramiah thought, almost physically ill at the thought of how weak he had been upon his escape, both physically and mentally. That woman, Elena Marie had definitely done something to him while he was under. He vaguely recalled a period of time where he was free... but that was mostly a blur.

All he could remember clearly was stunning red hair and a woman's laughter. He turned back to look at Anu, she looked bored, but then again she always looked like that... well, that or like she was sulking. He enjoyed her company even if she did have a god complex. Jeramiah stopped in front of a shop, it was a large super store. "They claim to sell the sharpest blades in the world..." he said, the whisper following his voice, echoed a mad laughter onto the wind. "Time to see if that's true" he said, his own laughter mirrored by the strange echo that now trailed on his every word. He stepped in only a few feet before a man in a ridiculous cloth uniform tried to stop him.

"Sir, I can't let you in here in that outfit, you'll scare away the other customers." the man said, the fear in his voice obvious.

"My sincerest apologies, don't worry, my armor won't scare them... but I hope this will" he said, raising his arm and pointing towards the man, two fingers extended.

"Gute nacht" he said before firing a blast of his dark smoke-like magic straight into the man's forehead. The man began to shake and shiver violently like he was having a seizure. His mouth began to foam and his eyes rolled back. His skin lost all color and his hair began to lose all color. Slowly the man withered into a husk, his eyes sunken and his skin colorless. This process lasted only seconds before the man exploded outwards in a blast of the same black smoke.
The smoke quickly spread throughout the large superstore, blocking all the exits and filling the air with screams as people watched strangers and loved ones alike mirror the horrific death of the rent-a-cop before they themselves succumbed to the smoke. While some might have defined it as lasting several hours, the security tapes would say otherwise, revealing that what had once been a bustling store full of people was reduced to a graveyard of black mist in a manner of moments.

The stench of death was thick in the air by the time it was all over.

Jeramiah just laughed and extending his other hand, he sucked the deadly magic in, every wisp entering his armor until the store was as devoid of smoke as the day it was opened. "Let's see if their claim about having the world's sharpest swords was correct" Jeramiah said, not missing a beat, as he casually strolled over to where the store's weaponry was kept.

Jeramiah looked over at the sword she had picked and shook his. "No, m'lady, that blade is garbage. We won't find anything of value here. It's just a cheap imitation of quality." And with that he turned and left the store, walked back to their apartment, and slept.