# Viasperon's Story - Chapter 3? (First Draft)



## andygorn (Apr 1, 2011)

_Hi everyone, hope you like. All comments, criticisms, suggestions for improvements, etc, gratefully received - Many thanks in advance, AndyG._
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*Chapter 3?*
Waking in what might have been termed panic, the sweat-soaked sheets fell from his muscular form as his mind sought to grasp onto the fleeting last seconds of dream.
This time was different, however: he had turned upon his puruser determined to end it once and for all; leading it into the dead-end that he had found and using actions he had rehearsed so many times over the last week.
It’s mis-shapen body blocked most of the tunnel’s light and at almost twelve feet tall, it had been one of his biggest adversaries yet.

Arms outstretched as it ran, the beast’s huge dirt-encrusted talons reached for him, eager to feel his flesh rending beneath it’s prodigious power. But this time it’s shoulders were encased in armour (their captors had evidently learnt from their last confrontation that he could find it’s weakness there) and it’s huge plodding actions were accompanied by the heavy gurgling of idling pertochem motors. In addition, one hand had been replaced by a spinning Buzz –Klaw that appeared to have been torn straight from an Ork Kan and merely nailed into place.
As he rounded the last corner with it close behind, the fingers of his left hand dug into the cracked wall, finding purchase in the uneven surface, his strength keeping his back tight to the cold metal as he hunched down. The creature had no such means to prevent it’s momentum and –although it cleared the bend- it’s skid carried it crashing into the facing wall.

Honed by mental practice, his strong thigh muscles launched him shoulder-first into the monster’s midriff, winding it a little, but succeeding in the main point of getting inside the reach of it’s weapons. His powerful punches thudded into it’s torso and he smiled as he felt several internal organs rupturing beneath the impacts, but even these seemed to cause little visible injury to the beast.
In reply, it’s huge torso barrelled into him, pushing him away just into range of the Klaw and it’s whirling disc sheared through his right shoulder pad, deeply gashing his arm. Only complete chance prevented it from severing his limb completely.

Bringing the full weight of his body into the swings, several kicks to the brute’s left knee brought it crashing down to the floor and a quick somersault over it’s roaring head allowed him to pull handfuls of greasy cables out of the back of it’s head, coating his fingers and most of the wall in stale yellow pus as it’s strength evaporated and the creature began to thrash feebly behind him,

No longer augmented by the frenzy-stimulants and steroids that had flowed through it, the beast’s strength now proved insufficient to even bear it’s own bodyweight, let alone lift a weapon to it’s own defence.

As it weakly gurgled and died, a soft plaintive cry emitted from a broken speaker-unit mounted where it’s face had once been. Turning it over, he looked down into it’s mess of wires and lumpen flesh and for a second caught a glimpse of very human recognition in it’s maddened red eyes before they rolled back in it’s head and it went limp in his arms. As it’s face turned away in death, the dank mat of coarse hair that covered the holes where it’s ears had once been parted and he saw a gold fleur-de-lis tattoo by the hairline at it’s left cheek.

Remembrance kicked in and something in his psyche told him that he should have been able to recognise the image. Had it been a friend, or was it one of his foes? With a grating and humourless laugh, he knew that there had been too few of the former and too many of the latter in his life, far too many to recall them all. This was just one amongst the many which sparked familiarity, yet did not bring back full recall and he tried not to dwell upon it, as there were already too many questions and this foe was already dead at his feet.
Did he feel a pang of remorse for killing it? Or were his captors just placing things in his way to make his mind weaker for the next challenges?

Shaking his head as he made his way back to his cell, he wondered what had made such a person fall from grace and submit? 


With the nightmare now ended, his vision returned to his solitary confinement: the red walls were pockmarked and cratered with impacts and scars...much like his own body after centuries of service.
'They think you follow another...Mustn’t think that way ! This is something which _they_ believe, not *you*...! ’ his mind screamed, finding a perverse, small measure of comfort in the familiarity of his harsh surroundings:


His senses sharpening, he saw the seventy-four scratches on the wall that spoke of the weeks he had spent here, yet there were other, older markings in the room: some were the more recognisable hatch marks, others were more cryptic and elaborate ; his rational warrior’s brain was still unwilling to allow him enough peace to process what the unfamiliar sigils might mean.

Though he had been able to keep track of the days, most other things in this place seemed to be mutable and designed to disorientate: the room’s pillars and door lacked identifying numerals and there was no way to tell how many levels the prison had. On the occasion that he had tried to use his weapons to score marks in the iron (the same material as the walls of the outside corridors), he had been hit with needles coated in a paralysing poison before robed and discoloured servitors(?) merely replaced the door.

Even the pale yellow “daylight” that streamed through his high window had proven to be nothing more than a meagre lantern hung just out of reach on the wall outside. He doubted that there even_ was_ an “outside” here...it may have been mounted on the _other_ side of the wall: just another wall, leading to another corridor and yet another block of cells....ad infinitum. The austere place of his incarceration seved only to further befuddle the mind and it was best not to think of such things.


Occasionally the slight breeze –wheezed through an inefficient air circulation system- held animal snarls, more humanoid shouts, or even noises that could pass for heartfelt sobbing. The feeble engineering keeping him alive was in stark contrast to the meticulous surgical attention he had received since his capture.

It was a cold-iron place: not only of incarceration, but also of torture and things broken, yet some things thankfully remained constant.


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