<style>#claire p { margin: 0px; text-indent: 2em; } #claire p.spacer { margin-top: 1em; }</style><div id="claire"><p style="text-align: right; margin: 1ex;"><tt>/* <a href="http://www.gothcandy.net/attachments/music/comawhite.ogg">Marilyn Manson - Coma White</a> */<br />/* Written By: GothAlice */</tt></p><p>A quiet guitar line strummed to life, the bass interposing itself after the fourth repetition. A spot faded to life as Claire's voice spread through the gathered crowd on both levels of the mall. Her power thinned and projected to all those gathered, enhancing the band and adding small flair not otherwise present. Those present were enthralled.</p><p class="spacer" style="Text-align: center">There's something cold and blank,<br />behind her smile.<br />I'm standing on an overpass,<br />in a miracle mile.<br /><br />'Cause you were from a perfect world,<br />a world that threw me away today.<br />Today, today, to run away.</p><p class="spacer">With a violent motion, lead and bass exploded in sound, point spots quickly fading up on each player.</p><p class="spacer" style="text-align: center;">A pill to make you numb.<br />A pill to make you dumb.<br />A pill to make you anybody else.<br />But all the drugs in this world,<br />won't save me from myself.</p><p class="spacer">The spot on Claire faided with the lingering last word, walking to the edge of the raised stage she leaned forward precariousally as if to illustrate the next verse. Underlighting flaring to life gave Claire an unearthly palor, evil shadows playing over her face as she continued,</p><p class="spacer" style="text-align: center;">Her mouth was an empty cut,<br />and she was waiting to fall.<br />Just bleeding like a polaroid,<br />that lost all her dolls.<br /><br />You were from a perfect world,<br />a world that threw me away today.<br />Today, today, to run away.<br /><br />[Refrain x2]<br /><br />You were from a perfect world,<br />a world that threw me away today.<br /><br />[Refrain x2]</p><p class="spacer">The lights faded again as there was a quick commotion to one side of the stage as someone conversed with the lead guitarist. Quick mumbling around the stage brought forth the second song as those on stage remained oblivious of the commotion further down the prominade. Quickly, Tom and Dianne switched places, tom hastily unpacking his violin as Katlyn switched switches on her keyboard. Claire sat on the edge of the stage, enjoying the performance as she continued to lend her power to those on stage. It began...</p><p class="spacer" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 1em;"><tt>/* Thus begins IcyMonkey's post. */</tt></p><p class="spacer" style="text-align: center;">- - -</p><p class="spacer">Look, here's the mall, Chaos wrote back to Zara. We'll continue this discussion later. Chaos switched off the radio, but a barely-audible and angry melody emanating from the mall, which they were now parked directly in front of, managed to allow Zarathustra to maintain control.</p><p>They exited the car. By this time the others had already entered the mall; they were the last to arrive it seems. As they drew nearer, Z began to hear the music somewhat more clearly. Sounds like some kind of metal or something. What does that marquee up there say - "NOW PLAYING: VIOLET ROSE: BY REQUEST"? Hmmm, never heard of them. I must have missed so much within the past five years. I wonder if Radiohead's come out with a new album? I wonder if popular music has stopped sucking so much? Oh well, better hit a record store.</p><p>As they entered the building, the music grew louder, being enhanced by Claire's extended power, his aura changed from a dull glow to a brilliant, pulsating nova of light. Vortexes of swirling energy seemed to spontaneously form around him. He recognized the girl on stage. Well, shit. This pretty much blows our cover. Not that I wanted us to have any in the first place. As everyone turned toward this conspicuous new arrival, and several recognized him as the infamous mass murdering terrorist Zarathustra, panic spread throughout the mall. Within minutes, almost every person there was running for cover, and the mall security force dashed toward him.</p><p>Zara jumped up into the air and stayed there, hovering above the security. They fired at him, an unwise move, since he was far too high up for any of them to get in a good shot, and Zara managed to reverse the trajectory of the shots and launch them in new directions. Most of the bullets that the guards had fired at him were now lodged deep within those same guards' skulls.</p><p>The other paras had, of course, noticed the commotion by now, and some of them rushed towards the battle to aid Zara, while others simply used this pandemonium as an excuse to indulge in their darker urges. Wait a minute - where the hell is Chaos?</p><p>With the aid of the others, Zara managed to dispatch all the guards (as well as many of the mallgoers) with relative ease. Now, there were only pockets of resistance among the unarmed victims of the more violent and uninhibited paras (including Zara himself), and this was easily dealt with. Zara was currently preoccupying himself with a certain very old man, silver-haired with a face like crumpled tissue paper. He had already gouged out one of the man's eyes with his mind, and was slowly crushing his skull when he was interrupted byone of the paras, the one named Max. Her was trying to ask Zara something, forgetting for the moment that, although Zara could hear the music perfectly (as well as the screams of his artwork, interestingly enough), he could not hear Max's words, or any other non-musical noise, at all, nor could he respond. Dammit. How am I supposed to implement the next phase of my plan without being able to speak? I can't fix my vocal chords and ears with this style of music...</p><p>As if in response to that, the music abrubtly stopped in the middle of the song. After about a minute or so of silence, in which Tom briefly regained control, new music started up. First came the piano, playing a gentle, sweet melody, and soon it was joined by a cello.</p><p class="spacer" style="text-align: right;"><tt>/* <a href="http://www.gothcandy.net/attachments/music/faraway.ogg">Apocalyptica - Faraway</a> (Instrumental, will change to vocal if asked.) */</tt></p><p class="spacer">Perfect....</p><p>The aura that surrounded Zarathustra now was not the full-body brilliance that he had displayed earlier. His entire body was indeed still glowing, and his pupils were still invisible beneath the effusion of light puring out of his eyes, but the light was by far most intense around his ears and throat, as he began the process of re-stitching the fibres of his vocal chords and mending his shattered ear drums. No one dared approach him. By the middle of the song, at which point the guitars had joined in the swelling melody, Zarathustra had begun humming along, hoarsely at first, but with increasing intensity. Finally, the song ended and a new song came on, this one a more dissonantly energetic piece. By now, Zara was fully healed.</p><p class="spacer" style="text-align: right;"><tt>/* <a href="http://www.gothcandy.net/attachments/music/somewhere.ogg">Apocalyptica - Somewhere Around Nothing</a> */</tt></p><p class="spacer">I want my first words in five years to be something... appropriate. Zara stared into the sunrise intently. He then scanned around the mall, his gaze stopping upon a large bookstore several hundred feet away. In the front he could see, featured quite prominently, a large Nietzsche display. Is that Thus Spoke Zarathustra they have there? How convenient. The book flew through the air and into his hand, and he lifted himself up, so that he was hovering directly in front and in the middle of the giant window facing the sunrise. He opened the book. section 1 of Zarathustra's Prologue should be quite appropriate here...</p><p>Zarathustra turned back towards the people at the mall and began to read aloud in a booming voice.</p><p>"When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it. But finally he had a change of heart - and rising one morning with the dawn, he went before the sun, and spoke thus to it:"</p><p>(Here Zara turned again toward the sunrise.)</p><p>"'Oh great star! What would your happiness be if you did not have us to shine for?</p><p>'For ten years you have climbed here to my cave: you would have become weary of shining and of the journey, had it not been for me, my eagle, and my serpent.</p><p>'But we waited for you every morning, took from you your overflow, and blessed you for it.</p><p>'Behold! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it from me. I wish to spread it and bestow it, until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches.</p><p>'For that I must descend into the depths, as you do in the evening when you go below the sea and bring light also to the underworld, you superabundant star!</p><p>'Like you, I must descend - as the men, to whom I shall go, call it.</p><p>'So bless me then, you tranquil eye that can behold even the greatest happiness without envy!</p><p>'Bless the cup that is about to overflow, that the water may flow golden out of it, and carry everywhere the reflection of your bliss!</p><p>'Behold! This cup wants to become empty again, and Zarathustra wants to be a man again.'"</p><p>(Zarathustra again turned toward the people in the mall.)</p><p>"Thus began Zarathustra's descent."</p><p class="spacer" style="text-align: right;"><tt>/* Thus begins Ancient's post, ver batim. */</p><p class="spacer">Guy was very happy. After bumping into Leo's shade, Grass had prepared to nedle him, whne suddenly it outstretched its hand and revealed a box. Guy was didn't think twice before taking the box from the strange, glazed over man. When he opened the box and found several tokens, he almost hugged the guy. Running back into the arcade he went towards what appeared to be a space shooter. Just as he was reaching the high score, he heard screams coming from outside and was overcome with curiosity. Ignoring Grass' protests, he ran out and saw one of his friend up in the air, glowing, and being fired upon.</p><p>With the game still fresh in his mind, he muttered "level 1" and jumped up into the air. Spitting out a Dementia Hornet, he stood its back with his foot positioned on its firing nerve. Keeping his balance while dodging bullets, he kept score his mind while he picked off gaurd after gaurd with giant stingers. A goup of 3 gaurd fromed up a squad and ripped his Hornet to peices. "Continue" falling from the second story, he spit out another Hornet and circled back to the group. Once he was done with them, he looked around for more targets and found none. "New high score."</p><p>Feeling a warm light on his back, he turned around and saw his glowing friend reading from a book. The words inspired him (he didn't understand them, but nevertheless, he was inspired) and he wanted to add his own touch to the powerfull image of Zara holding the book out before the sun. Still hovering on the Hornet, he spit out Butterfly again. This time he gave her the order to completly unfurl her wings. Foot after foot of color spread out from he base. She almost didn't have enough space to flap them in the huge mall. Flying behind Zara, she splayed them wide, and the suns rays shattered into a million briliant colors upon him.</p></div>
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