Elements Change the Dark Hearts

by Nightmare_0mega

Somber Grounds of Truth

The rain poured in endless torrents against the scarred cement entrance before the monolithic building known as World Marshal Headquarters. Lightning crackled through the sky, violently cutting the gloom suddenly and vanished just as quick. Heavy and intense air ebbed and flowed under the change of furious movements from two powerful cybernetic beings. Beneath the dancing weather, the two tortured souls whom were raised to survive even in the most brutal condition clashed with reckless abandon. One, a former child soldier that grew up to become a butcher of his enemies, despite his best efforts to suppress and control the monster within. To many, he was known as Raiden, a special operatives soldier turned cyborg that joined a peacekeeping PMC group to offer security measures for those in need. To few though, he was Jack the Ripper, a weapon of psychotic violence and destruction that merely lied to himself and concealed his true calling. The other, a street urchin that fought on the side of crime before taking the mantle as a gun for hire, relishing in his madness while embracing his dark nature. Long ago, he abandoned his old life of odd jobs just to stay alive, trading it up to be far more than he was. Carving a path of destruction in his new career and new found magnetic powers, granted by his new cybernetic body, he donned the name of the mighty and overwhelming torrential force: Monsoon.

"Is this the terrifying true form of Jack the Ripper?" the twisted mercenary cackled mockingly as his maroon and deep grey body glimmered in the rain, while he twirled his twin sais idly.

Then, Raiden rushed his offender. His dark grey and silver accented body crackled with blood red hues and electric sparks, which danced along his frame as he moved at a quick pace. Upon reaching Monsoon, the dark grey cyborg's electric charged blade raised to strike his foe down with extreme prejudice.

Being sliced from shoulder to hip, the red shaded cyborg segmented and separated his body to cleanly avoid every precise slice. Raiden continued his assault, chaining his slices with savage glee like a haywire blender. Having had enough of the flurry of attacks, the killer for hire glowed as wisps of purple energy emanated off of him. These wisps allowed him to detach each body segment at once, and float them all back to a safer distance to get some footing. Upon being far enough, he reattached himself, and flung his right arm forth like a whip causing his hand to detach and shoot towards the advancing adversary, sai pointed directly at its intended target.

"MAGNETIC POWER!" the maroon segmented cyborg cried out with mad glee as he stopped his hand mere feet from his opponent and readied his distant sai. Raiden lashed out immediately, prompting the hand to dodge easily to the side and go in for a counter. Before the maroon cyborg could realize it, the attack connected against his foes blade, only to be immediately countered and knocked out of the air.

"Damn," the hand-less Monsoon cursed as he began rushing forward to meet his opponent. Once he was close enough, he separated his top half form his bottom, and began flanking him from both sides. With a flurry of kicks from his lower half starting up the attack, the rest of the cyborg proceeded to swing his other sai with expert precision. With a harsh block, the segmented cyborgs legs were stunted, allowing his foe to dodge off to the side with a countering slice, which passed harmlessly between the maroon clad being's shoulder and arm. Not to be deterred, Monsoon rushed forward, and thrust his stumped right arm forth in a jab, aiming for Raiden's face.

The mad cyborg ninja blocked the oncoming attack, and swung back in retaliation, nicking Monsoon's face as he attempted to weave backward. The electric charged cut was enough to scramble the magnetically powered cyborgs sensors, leaving him a sitting duck for the briefest of moments. Taking hold of the opportunity, Raiden slashed once again at Monsoon's head. The first strike missed its mark just barely, forcing the head to separate further from the rest of his torso, which allowed Raiden to attack again. The second slash was enough to connect against Monsoon's chin, launching it far from the rest of his body, which fell to pieces upon the sudden disconnection. Raiden raced towards the disembodied cranium, and leaped forward with as much power and momentum as he could muster to stab downward at Monsoon's head. With barely a moment of respite, Monsoon's sensors picked up the incoming danger, and triggered his magnetic powers again with a purple flash. The sudden surge caused all downed pieces to rush back towards the pile of fragments left behind by Raiden.

Upon recombining, Monsoon leaped into the air and landed on a light pole's tip. With another push, he launched himself above the building's front doors, and anchored his body against the structure's glossy metal globe logo that was situated there with both feet and his right hand. With a flick of his free hand, and the charge of an extension that pushed out from his shady red helm, Monsoon directed his attention off to the left.

"This one's on me!" Monsoon said with a sickly grin. Over the surrounding wall came a cluster of broken vehicles in a mishmash together with haphazard abandon, held together with Monsoon's magnetism. To top it off, oil drums and other metallic objects were crushed amongst the mess, and the entire cluster was lit with an intense blaze. With another flick, Monsoon brought the dangerous collection between him and Raiden, forced it to spin wildly like a saw-blade, and pushed it forward toward his foe.

"Lorentz Force, GO!" Monsoon laughed as the cluster of flaming metal threatened to rip Raiden apart.

However, in an incredible display of power, Raiden blocked and repelled the incoming collection of fire and debris, before he leaped into the air, and diced it down to harmless shards. With the sudden shift of size and weight, Monsoon lost his invisible grip on his weapon, and let it fall apart. In desperation, he looked around again for something more solid, and noticed an obelisk just to the side of the walkway. Reaching out with his free hand, he let his magnetic power grip close around the metal within the stone monument, and wrenched it free from the ground, steel roots fraying from the forced disconnection. Monsoon cackled wildly, letting the size, shape, and weight of the obelisk slowly rotate in his power as he brought it back to their little arena.

"I'll put you under, WEAKLING!" He shouted as he pointed the monolith towards Raiden and began to spin it faster and faster like a drill. "What will you do now, Jack the Ripper?" And with that question, he launched his spinning death tower at his opponent, and waited for the inevitable, and likely futile, attempt at repelling the stone and steel obelisk.

With quick thinking, Raiden opted to dodge the entire attack, leaping into the air and letting it bury itself into the cement. Upon landing on it, the crazed cyborg ran up the shaft, preparing to leap at Monsoon for one final clash. In desperation, however, Monsoon picked up a tank, and launched it at Raiden's leaping body. Predictably, the cyborg cut it in half with expert precision, and continued sailing forth unhindered.

"You're dead!" Monsoon shouted, launching off of the wall, intending his final attack to go for a killing blow.

"DEAD ON!" Raiden cried in response, as his foot collided with Monsoon's collar, embedding him into World Marshal's outer wall. The impact knocked the artificial wind out of him, as Raiden stomped against the body of his opponent a few times, making sure it could not separate on a whim, before leaping off a short distance, and readying his blade.

Monsoon didn't know whether he taunted his foe into doing his worst, or begged him pathetically to stop, but the end result was the same. Raiden let his sword fly, turning the stuck body into ribbons of scrap in mere seconds, before lopping off Monsoon's head, and landing on the cement below.

His ruined body exploded with gusto, forcing his head to sail out of the wall and land with a sickening metallic bouncing noise before Raiden's feet, before rolling to a stop. As the fires subsided and the dust settled, the sound of the rain began to prevail the area, split only by the crackles of lightning.

"Kill... or be killed..." Monsoon projected weakly through his codec communication, as his vocal functions were shot. Warning signals and drops in power that were all presented directly into his barely living mind told him one inevitable truth. Life support that was being fed directly to his brain was dropping fast, and he would soon die.

"Don't be ashamed. It's only nature, running its course!" Raiden mocked with a twisted sneer, mimicking the very words Monsoon said to him earlier, "Your memes end here!"

Monsoon smiled inwardly. "No.... I passed one... to you." The remnants of his hazy vision began to blur further. "Sure as the sun... will rise, the slaughter.... will continue..." Pain ebbed and flowed before it began to subside, "Now, I return... to the earth..." His words and thoughts rapidly degraded in strength as he could barely keep his consciousness intact. "Wind blows, rain falls... The strong... prey... on the weak... All... is as it should-d... be~e... e..."

With one final simulated breath, the cyborg's function ceased, and the mind within the chassis died not a moment later, following the scrap to the grave. The ichor that once stained the ground slowly washed away from the relentless rain's flow, refusing to cease until the clouds were finally clear.

However, for the extreme naturalist, this moment was not the end. With a flash of light on his fading existence that cut through like lightning, Monsoon experienced the sensation of true agony. Microscopic piece by piece, he could feel his entire form return to him in a painstakingly meticulous matter. The sensation was enough to whitewash the black perception before him.

Within moments, the feeling suddenly stopped, leaving him in the bliss of physical peace once again. Without thinking, he let his optical sensors turn on gently, just as eyelids would open slowly if he still had them. Before his limited vision blurred to nothing, he thought he swore he saw a mismatched pair of red and yellow eyes which betrayed a knowing look. Then, a violent and intense sense of vertigo followed, coming just before an intense darkness.

-o-v-o-v-o-v-o-v-o-

"AHHHHHH!"

Lightning split the darkened sky over Sweet Apple Acres as the night continued to rage on. Rain pattered hard against the glass windows as wind pushed the trees in the orchard to and fro. Despite the ruckus, everyone within the farmhouse that sat near the orchard's entrance slept with peace of mind. Everyone except for an agitated orange mare named Applejack. Her blonde locks swept to the side as she jerked her attention towards the window, almost leering disdainfully at the weather outside. She sighed heavily, hoping nopony heard her scream in surprise due to the thunderous crack above. The last thing she'd need is to fess up to something so embarrassing. Another boom sounded off, following the lightning she saw moments after she woke up.

"Ugh, confound that weather team," she drawled tiredly, "Din't think the downpour would be this bad." She looked to her stetson hat hanging off the bedpost for a moment for comfort, before looking at the time. It was still two in the morning. With another groan, she slammed her head back into the pillow, before flipping the blanket over her face, trying hard to ignore the commotion outside.

Another explosion of sound, louder than the thunder before it, forced Applejack to jump out of bed with a yelp. Landing on the floor with the grace of a rock tumbling down a mountain, she picked herself back up and rubbed her chin with her hoof.

"This's ridiculous. Ah'm an Apple, not a worm." The moment's effect melted away the moment she began to realize that the last boom of noise wasn't thunder. It was much heavier, and it didn't follow another split of lightning. Groggily, she wandered to the window and peered hard outside, hoping the sound wasn't a tree being ripped out of the ground to be used as a battering ram. Outside was drenched, and trees were still swaying and bending to the whims of the wind, but nothing seemed wrong. She did see something off in the distance move between the trees, but figured it was just some critter looking for shelter from the rain.

Believing the noise was just her imagination, she wandered back to her bed, slipped under the covers, and angrily turned her body away from the storm.

Author's Note:

Bishop of Hexen

Comments

[NightWallopingNuggets]

Wow, I was suspecting someone else but...I don't care for my eagerness still lives on. :D

[Nightmare_0mega]

5865377 Glad you're still invested in my story. Don't worry, there are two more arcs after Monsoon's, so he's bound to show up in one of them.

[NightWallopingNuggets]

5865382
Yeah.

[Nightmare_0mega]

5869926 he's also gonna have to learn to adapt to an all fish diet while he's there... quite a few species there are sapient, really limiting his choices

[Nightmare_0mega]

5870430 Very glad you're liking it so far

[Bold Promise]

I just had a thought. Maybe you could bring Sombra back as well?