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Teknophage: Demon's Reign 8A

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(OP: The World by Nightmare)

Teknophage: Demon's Reign Episode 8: Soultrain

Outside the familiar building, as rain began to pour, hissing was heard as the words were heard.

Voice: I have walked across the face of your world, following the footsteps of the rain.

Down below, ehre the statue of the Phage was, a poor man was trying to cover himself pathetically.

Voice: Where the rain goes, my mind goes also.

Many machines circled around the building as one shone its light around.

Voice: My heart resonates in harmony with the thunder. My blood pulses in the streams. I have seen sights most marvelous beyond the confines of these walls.

Finally, one machine shone toward a hole near the building.

Voice: The planet lives and breathes...a suffocating, miasmic, concoction of bewilderment and potiential...

It then went inside through the gaping hole.

Voice: Where every echo of human achievement pays testament to the glory of the Phage.

Inside, the machine flew passed a few workers working at the edges while people below walked or worked in the area.

Voice: I feel their broken, desperate souls from within this dark place: they skitter through the maze of their confusion, like rats in a cage.

Down below, few were fighting, starving, drinking, or resting while the Bootmen watched.

Voice: No light illuminates this world of solicitude: it has become a place of despare and desolation...where every waking thought is tainted with fear of being chosen. I am confined in the deepest, darkest place of all, and have remained here for 2-perhaps 300 years.

At the vault marked "Abandon Hope", the voice was heard.

Voice: A thousand times have I wondered how such a place might exist in creation. Yet a thousand times more have I given thanks to God for my good fortune.

Inside, the Phage looked at the elderly man, whom was speaking while Ayami looked concerned.

Man: For not once during those 300 years have I been worthy of your attention, Henry Phage...until now.

Phage: Ah yes, quite. One can easily forget one's obligations as "host" when one is preoccupied with the machinations of a thankless world. Still, I was in the vicinity...and she and I thought you might welcome the opportunity for a little chat, old boy.

Ayami: Um...why's he chained?

Phage: Oh, right.

He kneeled down, breaking the chain on the Hindu.

Phage: (to the man) A discourse, perhaps, on the nature of the body, mind, and soul?

Ayami: (concerned) I hope it's nothing like that weird prophecy game I played once.

Phage: Ayami, please. That Chico Whatsit is only a made up game destined to be a never happy ending within the Earth's company.

With the trio, whom watched through the device, Sam began pondering.

Sam: Yeah, I have to agree with the demon on that one.

Max groaned in boredom.

Max: Sam, they're talking in leet code.

Sam: You don't even know what "leet" means.

Max: The opportunity to make people feel pathetically sorry for you?

Jason: (annoyed) Just watch.

With the ones in the prison, the old man began grunting, starting to get up slowly.

Man: (panting) My thanks for your heartfelt concern...most revered Phage and young lady. Then a discourse it shall be...for I can see you two are the most troubled.

Phage: (hissing) It is no trouble, I assure you. No trouble at all.

The old man was lifted up a bit.

Ayami: (grunting) Gee, you really probably should get out more often, sir.

Phage: So tell me, how does it feel to know that one's body can no longer support one's expectations?

Man: (groans) If my body is failing...it is of little consequence, my friends. (points to himself) This vessel has served me well...bit it is simply a means...to an end.

Phage: Hmmm, indeed.

At the vats, as his voice spoke next, the workers watched skeletons melting while a few hooked the drains up.

Phage's Voice: But I have found that your end approaches so rapidly as to make the build up, sadly, rather pointless. I have taken great pains to understand the extent of human frailty, you see. I have dissected and studied every neve-ending and every cell...just to find out what makes you tick.

One of the workers looked at the monitor of the pressure, noticing it starting to rise.

Phage's Voice: And do you know what I have discovered the human body to be when all is said and done? A rather worthless commodity.

Ayami's Voice: Henry!

Phage's Voice: Well more and less. There are some exceptions like you, Ayami.

With Jason, he frowned in anger.

Jason: That idiot. He can't talk like that about us!

Max: You have a point. Besides, the Phage stole my idea first.

Sam: What does that even mean?

Max: (growls) I dunno, but it's starting to make me burn up all over.

At another area, some people were pouring some familiar liquid into a boiler.

Phage's Voice: I was terribly disappointed when I first realized this, of course. All the effluvium accumulated over so many centuries of study...it seemed a pity to let it go to waste.

Then, it closed as it began to be pulled.

Phage's Voice: So I had a rather wonderful idea...I have a head for smart business decisions, if I do say so myself. Why not put the remains to good use, I thought? Give back tot he masses, as it were?

As many were pulling the big pots, a woman chef was boiling the koffup while singing.

Chef: (singing) I love my work an' I love my wages...I love my boss, an' he loves me too...oh, my luverly line of skeletons...I'd surely die for you...

She then looked at a worker getting something before she called, with him noticing.

Chef: (frowns) Oy! You found that tub yet, y' slack little turd? I got a thirsty 'punchers waitin' for this batch...an' be careful. That Adrenaline's dangerous stuff.

Man: Ungh...got it right here, Cookie-

Just then, ye nearly slipped, dropping the bucket.

Man: Whup! Look out!

The woman dodged before the bucket fell in.

Man: Blimey! Sorry, Cookie.

She only shrugged, looking at the bucket sinking downward.

Cookie: Ah, nevermind, lad. There's plenty more where that came from. Besides, this batch'll have an extra kick to it.

She patted the side of the pot, which was marked "Koffup: Batch # 104 zk" on it. Back in the cell, the Phage chuckled with a grin.

Phage: They don't know, of course, but I HAVE lately been toying with the idea of telling them.

With Jason, he looked extremely disgusted.

Jason: OH MY GOSH!! You mean they and I were drinking...AUGH!!

He went near a trash can, throwing up while Max and Sam looked at one another.

Sam: Holy great plot twists that have skeletons in the Day of the Dead. Now that's shocking.

Max: (grins) And somehow appropriate. Makes me glad I NEVER drank that stuff.

Ayami, meanwhile, looked horrid.

Ayami: Oh, gross!! Ungh!!

Phage: (sighs) Ayami...

He then smirked back to the man.

Phage: What do you think? Are they ready for such a deliciously unpleasant truth?

Man: That truth...is unimportant, I think. Of what use is the body, Henry Phage and young lady? When one is unable to experience the pleasures of the mind?

(Flashback)

In the past, someone was meditating as he held still.

Man's Voice: I had a body once...it was a long time ago, and I was young...

He only meditated while sitting near the lake.

Man's Voice: I remember the sky and the trees. I remember hour upon hour spent in contemplation, and the warm sunlight which fed my waking dreams. I grew certain that I would remain in that pllace until it was time to surrender my hold on the material plane.

Then, a noise was heard as he opened his eyes, then stood up to where a familiar gate appeared.

Man's Voice: One day...it was during a time when my soul resonated with the song of the wivers...I beheld a marvelous and terrible apparition. I jumped to my feet, certain that I was about to look on the face of God.

Then, out came two familiar looking robots nearing him.

Man's Voice: But then came a terrible awareness...I realized that demons had come in his place.

Then, he was snatched by the two.

Man's Voice: My hold on the physical ended, as paradise slipped through my fingers.

At the familiar world, the man was dragged by the robots to where Sumos, holding the chair with the Phage pondering were.

Man's Voice: I found myself being dragged into Hell. I tried to scream, but the words were afraid to show themselves, for fear of also being damned. I had only the strength to see YOU and to hear YOUR voice.

The Phage only pointed to that man, looking bored.

Phage: That one. Put him in the hole.

Man's Voice: It was the first AND only time you ever spoke to me.

Inside the same prison, the man was chained by the robot before it left, closing the cell.

Man's Voice: Many years passed inside my place of shadows, with no explanation as to why I had been imprisoned.

It then showed the man, now a bit older with longer beard, groaning.

Man's Voice: I brooded and wallowed in a torment of my own making. I felt certain my God had abandoned me, and my faith in him lessened with each passing year.

It then later showed a man placing a cup near the cell before it closed.

Man's Voice: More time passed...a century, perhaps two. I became indifferent to my fate.

The same man, whom started looking a bit wrinkly, looked around.

Man's Voice: But after a time, I wondered if I had not been too hasty. I looked within for answers.

He then began meditating once more, with his vision showing the same paradise he was in before.

Man's Voice: My mind then reached outwards. I felt the tremors of suffering upon the world you created, so I ventured beyond. There, I became attuned to the songs and atmospheres of the world you had taken from me.

He continued to calmly listen.

Man's Voice: I listened harder, and my world came flooding back to me in a joyous surge. I returned to Earth, and flew above mountains with the sun. I was at peace once more with my God, and I realized that he had not abandoned me.

(End Flashback)

Ayami smiled a bit happily as she grinned.

Ayami: (to herself) There's hope...

The serpent, however, only licked his chops as he glared.

Phage: How very trite...a regurgitated story about the worthless hallucinations of a limited intellect-

Man: Perhaps, Henry Phage, but it makes no difference. It was held in darkness, while you were free to go as you pleased. But while you could only walk the halls of your building, I could fly across universes in my mind.

Phage: (hissing) Sooo, you think your experience is superior to mine? That is a very dangerous notion, as charming as it may be. (taps the man's head) In truth, you don't understand a fraction of it, old man. Not as I do.

As he spoke next, at the vats, one of the workers picked up a tube of some sort with a spike nail pointing downward.

Phage's Voice: I strip their composite parts away...layer by layer...in the vats, you see. As their flesh melts, they become ripe for the plucking and my employees are there to expedite the process, as it were.

Then, one of the helmets was placed on a corpse, which was screaming.

Phage's Voice: It has been said that one's life flashes before one's eyes at the precise moment of one's death. I do so wish I could find a way to capture and distill the splendid look on their faces when they realize that this is, indeed, the case.

It then showed the memories of the person's life starting to be drained into the tube.

Phage's Voice: I siphon off each memory, one by one, and bring them upstairs to be committed to my pneumatic machines. My keypunchers' instructions are quite explicit: they are required to save only the most satisfying of life's experiences.

At the familiar room, some of them were saving and deleting memories.

Phage's Voice: Those memories worthy of my attention are collated and filed and the useless remainders are mercifully consigned to the ether where they belong. In the end, it all boils down rather neatly onto one or two scraps of paper. Rather an ignominous end, wouldn't you two say?

Ayami's Voice: To me, that's terrible. I mean, why would you want to peek into minds, or...even mine?

Phage's Voice: Ayami, I know what you're trying to do, but please, can we discuss this AFTER I finish my talk?

With a worker, a man glanced at someone tossing a cup to him.

Worker: Koffup! Gis' it 'ere, quick! Gotta catch up!

Man: Steady on, y' impatient sot!

The cup was filled up before he was given the drink. Quickly, the worker drank it before he hacked and coughed, starting to choke. He began turning red a bit.

Man: (hacking) Gah! Summink...wrong-

With the trio watching, they turned as an explosion was heard.

Voice: Clean up in Aisle 7!

The trio looked back as they yelped.

Three: EWWW!!!

Jason: (frowns) Now you know how I feel. Ungh.

Max: With stuff exploding people's heads? Who wouldn't like to blow someone's head off? Sam, can we get some of that?

Sam: Only if I jump off the cliff with cement shoes and anvils tied onto my legs and arms.

Max: (disappointed) Awwww.

Jason: (sighs) Let's just watch more, shall we?

Both: Right.

(End of Act 1)
As Sam, Max, and Jason can only watch, the Phage and the old man, while Ayami watches the two duke out the battle of wits, confront one another about their own beliefs. However, would it also affect her own beliefs? Special Guest in Act 2: Him.
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