Post by LACKLAN on Apr 13, 2019 17:03:00 GMT -5
It takes a lot of pull for a restaurant to serve someone when they are not currently in operations. It takes a name. A family. A portfolio. A wallet. And while it would take most, if not all, of those things for Alinea to open its doors before it was ready to showcase Alinea 2.0 to the public, the owners of one of Chicago’s finest dining establishments did not hesitate when this particular name came calling on a late Monday evening:
Lacklan.
Even with the promise of riches provided by a well known family, the servers of the restaurant were skeptical when the orders came in: A plate of escargot, a plate of poutine, a rib bone (meat not necessary), and a small serving of a pork tenderloin schmear with a crostini. The chefs typically prepared American classics with a modern flair, and so the bouquet of international food was bewildering, but the promise of riches overruled any culinary discomfort they had.
The same could not be said for the servers.
The plate of poutine, “french fried” potatoes with cheese curds and covered in a brown gravy, was half-eaten in front of a short and stocky man in his middle years. Wearing a pinstripe full three-piece suit with a horrendously orange tie, he wears his sunglasses indoors for seemingly no reason, and has a head which gleams in the light. Next to him, gnawing wordlessly on the rib bone, is a Japanese man with crazed eyes who has thus far said nothing but grunts and growls. Sitting across him is the owner of the plate of snails sauteed in butter, a woman with platinum down past her shoulders and piercing green eyes. And behind her, standing silently, was a man with his arms folded before him, an odd-looking mask covering the lower half of his face.
“So let me get this...PERFECTLY CLEAR!”
Johnny Bonecrusher can’t help by shout out his catch phrase, even out of context, while also jabbing a stubby finger towards the woman.
“YOU-”
He points to himself.
“-want ME-”
He points to the man loudly gnawing on the bone.
“-and by me I mean HIM-”
He points back to the woman across from him.
“-to watch YOUR back. And then YOU-”
Another authoritative jab to himself.
“-will watch MINE-”
Back to the gnawing man.
“-and by mine in mean HIS. Is that right?”
“Tout à fait.”
The woman’s French accent is strong, perhaps seemingly strong with the scent of garlic snails wafting from her mouth, and Johnny can’t help by grimace. He gives a shake of his head.
“Why?”
A light smile comes to the woman’s face and her eyes shine.
“The vacuum, Monsieur.”
Johnny raises his eyebrow so high that it can clearly be seen even behind his glasses. The woman smiles wider and reaches forward, taking his hands in hers, and pats them.
“Do you know what this company does? It feeds on itself. It cannibalizes. Its eats away at its foundations and forces people like you and me...good people...to do terrible things. It-”
He is the enemy
The woman’s face twinges for a fast moment, and her smile dips, but it returns quickly.
“It makes us-”
hurt him hurt him HURT HIM HU
She shakes her head and closes her eyes. Her grip tightens on Johnny’s hands and he can begin to feel her nails dig into his knuckles.
“Earth to Ava!”
Her head snaps up and her eyes fly open. Eyes full of rage. Eyes full of-
ASK HIM WHAT I WANT TO KNOW
She shakes her head again and turns towards the growling man with the bone in his mouth. Her face falls into a grimace as she sees that he has successfully cracked the bone in two and was hungrily sucking out the marrow.
“Your...servant...is utter chaos. Pure chaos. Without direction. Without purpose. I can fix him.”
She turns back to Johnny.
“I was much the same last year. At least for a time. Living in a...warehouse.”
She shakes her head.
“But I found my purpose. I listened to God.”
She ignores the “Harumph!” from Johnny.
“I became what I was supposed to be, and that is something I believe that I can offer your charge.”
She pauses for a moment, and Johnny looks at his student. He sighs and shakes his head as the man begins to suck the other side of the bone.
“Kids today! Harumph! HARUMPH, I say!”
The woman rolls her green eyes.
“Do not get me started. I am forced to accept the successes of my daughters...all of them...even IF it all pales to mine. Because my success, my goals, are what God Himself wishes. The world ripped apart by the Chaos they so desire, and rebuilt to be what He has always wanted. A world of purity. A world of splendor. All built upon the ruined foundations of Chaos. And I edge ever closer to the level of success as the Champion of Chaos that no man, woman, or child, no matter how lost in their own delusions, can deny.”
She smiles and shakes her head.
“Do you know what Pierce said about me, once?”
Johnny shakes his head, but it seems the woman was going to continue to speak regardless of his answer.
“That when I stumped and let my championship fall, even if only for a few moments, to the Harvester, that I had a ‘solid run’ as champion. Such a silliness from that man. For someone so obsessed with history, for someone who cannot ever find himself in the here and now for more than a brief flash, his own grasp on history is weak. It is well known now that, across my two reigns with the Chaos title, I have held the championship more days than any other. And that includes Pierce, himself. But as I get ever closer to taking the only record left to me, that of the longest single reign, something about the history of this company...this company which forces good people like you and I to do terrible things... catches my interest.
“Pierce is a champion of multiple reigns, there is no doubt, but like many of his characteristics, it bears little honor upon scrutiny. Four times he has held my championship...four times! Yet in all that time, across all those days, he has only successfully defended that title three times. First two reigns...he allowed himself to be removed of my championship without so much as a fight. And even in his third, where he finally defended it once, that was against this Mathis woman, the woman of the failed televised revolution. I ate her revolution. It tasted like chicken.
“And while he was able to do well with his final reign by defeating the likes of our world champion and number one contender, it was all simply the path leading back to me. The path leading back to being crushed by his inability to grow beyond pandering to names from the past, or needing the likes of Jet Somers to give his promotional videos weight. In fact, if you take away Jet Somers, if you take away how Somers was able to drag Pierce through his usual home of sub mediocrity in the Cooperative ranks, you have Travis Pierce, a World Champion who cannot defend his title, and a Cross-Hemisphere Champion who can only defeat a very tired Dave Rydell on the way towards being embarrassed by that Lockhart troll.”
She shakes her head again.
“Hardly a champion worthy of the ‘decorated’ qualifier, I’d say. Meanwhile, my ‘solid runs’ have included me defending my championship against five different people, more than any other in the history of the championship, and that includes Chaos himself. How odd to know that, in all of those months and months the drunkard carried my championship, he only had to defend it five times. It makes you wonder if they were using him to set the stage for champions not caring or bothering to be booked on even most of the shows.”
She shrugs again and
ASK HIM YOU DUMB BITCH
She shuts her eyes and shakes her head roughly. Johnny begins looking around to avoid the shaking head of his dinnermate, and then hisses as her nails dig in again.
“...stamina…”
She chews on her lips, her eyes still closed.
“...the stamina, Monsieur Bonecrusher. Men like Pierce do not have it. He hides away for long stretches at a time. He puts for the same effort in every match, an effort of barely there and oblivious to the happenings of today, whether he is scraping the bottom of the barrel or pouring from the finest vintage. And because of that, regardless of how many titles he has held, he is looked upon with derision by those around him and scoffed at by his peers. And soon, he and I will add another chapter in our personal story, a story of loss and sadness from his perspective.”
She opens her eyes and the emeralds gleam.
“Eight times we have fought, Monsieur. Eight times Pierce and I have stood across the ring from one another. And not once has he pinned my shoulders to the ground. Not once has he been able to gain a true victory. Instead, he has found himself again and again suffering losses to the true Champion of Chaos, to the person with more championship victories than nearly any other single individual in the last year and more. For while people think of Vain’s time as champion to be important, and while Vaughn and Rydell were on the precipice of history...I AM history. Because my house has the stamina.”
She finally releases her death grip on Johnny’s hand and his face smooth outs. The corners of her lips turn up into a smile.
“I have won nineteen matches on Synergy in my time with the UGWC, a number which is nearly DOUBLE the amount of wins that Travis Pierce has had in my time here, regardless of the when or how he got them. Synergy has become MY show, no matter who holds what title, or what insane match I end up in. I have defeated everyone on the roster at some point in time, in a mixture of singles, cooperative, and my own Chaos, while he has only been able to find lasting success when being dragged along by his betters. Synergy is a slog...a constant demand for energy...and it is only I that has shown the stamina needed to find success in such a wide variety of scenarios and situations. Stamina IS the calling of my house. Right this moment, while I am loathe to give them their credit or support, the Grey has shown a stamina that has proven her worth with championship victories, the Blood Princess hoists a tournament cup into the air in Monsieur Lane’s company, and-”
Her eyes dart downward and her voice momentarily comes out in a whisper.
“...Shin is champion...Vaughn is champion…the blood is strong…”
My puddin’s blood! ASK HIM, DAMNIT
The woman raises her eyes again to find Johnny’s sunglasses, and her smile grows.
“What did it feel like, Johnny?”
“Huh? What?”
Even these questions sounds like a gruff “Harumph!” from the man.
“What did it feel like when my husband, il est ressuscité, SLAMMED the Knocker into your head all those years ago. Did it feel-”
She shivers, ecstasy written on her face. Johnny quickly pulls away his hands from hers and throws them into the air.
“CHECK, PLEASE!”
The boom in his voice startles the woman and she shakes her head. By the time the server approaches with their bill, she has blinked several times and seems to be back to herself. As the paper is handed to the woman, Johnny notices the items listed on the check, including the phantom order of crostini and pork loin schmear.
“Wait...what? What is this? Who ate that?”
The woman smiles as she runs her signature across the bottom of the paper with a fine hand.
“Fear, of course. He often joins me for dinner.”
Johnny stares at the woman blankly, then slowly removes his glasses. His dark eyes are filled with incredulity. He opens and closes his mouth several times, trying to form the words to the idea that Phrixus Deimos dined with them tonight yet he never saw the enigmatic man. But the woman looks up with shining eyes full of humor.
“Deimos is always present, Monsieur. Always silently observing. If he does not appear...well...it is only because you failed to notice him.”
She suddenly reaches forward and clasps Johnny’s hands in their death grip again.
“There is a vacuum. This company...it yearns for a group. It years for an alliance. People who wish to pull strings. The Engine. The Court. The Serpents. Others. Nature finds this vacuum to be abhorrent. It HATES it. And it WILL fill it. And if not us?”
She shrugs and looks at the man still gnawing on his bone before turning back to Johnny.
“Better us than my daughters. Better us than men like Scott. Better us than those who would fail to do the right thing. Who fail to embrace the Chaos.
The woman turns her head to the side in a movement so similar to his old nemesis that Johnny cannot stop the shiver that slips through his body, but the smile on her face was nothing he ever saw on the old preacher. That smile was all Ava.
Was all chaos.
Lacklan.
Even with the promise of riches provided by a well known family, the servers of the restaurant were skeptical when the orders came in: A plate of escargot, a plate of poutine, a rib bone (meat not necessary), and a small serving of a pork tenderloin schmear with a crostini. The chefs typically prepared American classics with a modern flair, and so the bouquet of international food was bewildering, but the promise of riches overruled any culinary discomfort they had.
The same could not be said for the servers.
The plate of poutine, “french fried” potatoes with cheese curds and covered in a brown gravy, was half-eaten in front of a short and stocky man in his middle years. Wearing a pinstripe full three-piece suit with a horrendously orange tie, he wears his sunglasses indoors for seemingly no reason, and has a head which gleams in the light. Next to him, gnawing wordlessly on the rib bone, is a Japanese man with crazed eyes who has thus far said nothing but grunts and growls. Sitting across him is the owner of the plate of snails sauteed in butter, a woman with platinum down past her shoulders and piercing green eyes. And behind her, standing silently, was a man with his arms folded before him, an odd-looking mask covering the lower half of his face.
“So let me get this...PERFECTLY CLEAR!”
Johnny Bonecrusher can’t help by shout out his catch phrase, even out of context, while also jabbing a stubby finger towards the woman.
“YOU-”
He points to himself.
“-want ME-”
He points to the man loudly gnawing on the bone.
“-and by me I mean HIM-”
He points back to the woman across from him.
“-to watch YOUR back. And then YOU-”
Another authoritative jab to himself.
“-will watch MINE-”
Back to the gnawing man.
“-and by mine in mean HIS. Is that right?”
“Tout à fait.”
The woman’s French accent is strong, perhaps seemingly strong with the scent of garlic snails wafting from her mouth, and Johnny can’t help by grimace. He gives a shake of his head.
“Why?”
A light smile comes to the woman’s face and her eyes shine.
“The vacuum, Monsieur.”
Johnny raises his eyebrow so high that it can clearly be seen even behind his glasses. The woman smiles wider and reaches forward, taking his hands in hers, and pats them.
“Do you know what this company does? It feeds on itself. It cannibalizes. Its eats away at its foundations and forces people like you and me...good people...to do terrible things. It-”
He is the enemy
The woman’s face twinges for a fast moment, and her smile dips, but it returns quickly.
“It makes us-”
hurt him hurt him HURT HIM HU
She shakes her head and closes her eyes. Her grip tightens on Johnny’s hands and he can begin to feel her nails dig into his knuckles.
“Earth to Ava!”
Her head snaps up and her eyes fly open. Eyes full of rage. Eyes full of-
ASK HIM WHAT I WANT TO KNOW
She shakes her head again and turns towards the growling man with the bone in his mouth. Her face falls into a grimace as she sees that he has successfully cracked the bone in two and was hungrily sucking out the marrow.
“Your...servant...is utter chaos. Pure chaos. Without direction. Without purpose. I can fix him.”
She turns back to Johnny.
“I was much the same last year. At least for a time. Living in a...warehouse.”
She shakes her head.
“But I found my purpose. I listened to God.”
She ignores the “Harumph!” from Johnny.
“I became what I was supposed to be, and that is something I believe that I can offer your charge.”
She pauses for a moment, and Johnny looks at his student. He sighs and shakes his head as the man begins to suck the other side of the bone.
“Kids today! Harumph! HARUMPH, I say!”
The woman rolls her green eyes.
“Do not get me started. I am forced to accept the successes of my daughters...all of them...even IF it all pales to mine. Because my success, my goals, are what God Himself wishes. The world ripped apart by the Chaos they so desire, and rebuilt to be what He has always wanted. A world of purity. A world of splendor. All built upon the ruined foundations of Chaos. And I edge ever closer to the level of success as the Champion of Chaos that no man, woman, or child, no matter how lost in their own delusions, can deny.”
She smiles and shakes her head.
“Do you know what Pierce said about me, once?”
Johnny shakes his head, but it seems the woman was going to continue to speak regardless of his answer.
“That when I stumped and let my championship fall, even if only for a few moments, to the Harvester, that I had a ‘solid run’ as champion. Such a silliness from that man. For someone so obsessed with history, for someone who cannot ever find himself in the here and now for more than a brief flash, his own grasp on history is weak. It is well known now that, across my two reigns with the Chaos title, I have held the championship more days than any other. And that includes Pierce, himself. But as I get ever closer to taking the only record left to me, that of the longest single reign, something about the history of this company...this company which forces good people like you and I to do terrible things... catches my interest.
“Pierce is a champion of multiple reigns, there is no doubt, but like many of his characteristics, it bears little honor upon scrutiny. Four times he has held my championship...four times! Yet in all that time, across all those days, he has only successfully defended that title three times. First two reigns...he allowed himself to be removed of my championship without so much as a fight. And even in his third, where he finally defended it once, that was against this Mathis woman, the woman of the failed televised revolution. I ate her revolution. It tasted like chicken.
“And while he was able to do well with his final reign by defeating the likes of our world champion and number one contender, it was all simply the path leading back to me. The path leading back to being crushed by his inability to grow beyond pandering to names from the past, or needing the likes of Jet Somers to give his promotional videos weight. In fact, if you take away Jet Somers, if you take away how Somers was able to drag Pierce through his usual home of sub mediocrity in the Cooperative ranks, you have Travis Pierce, a World Champion who cannot defend his title, and a Cross-Hemisphere Champion who can only defeat a very tired Dave Rydell on the way towards being embarrassed by that Lockhart troll.”
She shakes her head again.
“Hardly a champion worthy of the ‘decorated’ qualifier, I’d say. Meanwhile, my ‘solid runs’ have included me defending my championship against five different people, more than any other in the history of the championship, and that includes Chaos himself. How odd to know that, in all of those months and months the drunkard carried my championship, he only had to defend it five times. It makes you wonder if they were using him to set the stage for champions not caring or bothering to be booked on even most of the shows.”
She shrugs again and
ASK HIM YOU DUMB BITCH
She shuts her eyes and shakes her head roughly. Johnny begins looking around to avoid the shaking head of his dinnermate, and then hisses as her nails dig in again.
“...stamina…”
She chews on her lips, her eyes still closed.
“...the stamina, Monsieur Bonecrusher. Men like Pierce do not have it. He hides away for long stretches at a time. He puts for the same effort in every match, an effort of barely there and oblivious to the happenings of today, whether he is scraping the bottom of the barrel or pouring from the finest vintage. And because of that, regardless of how many titles he has held, he is looked upon with derision by those around him and scoffed at by his peers. And soon, he and I will add another chapter in our personal story, a story of loss and sadness from his perspective.”
She opens her eyes and the emeralds gleam.
“Eight times we have fought, Monsieur. Eight times Pierce and I have stood across the ring from one another. And not once has he pinned my shoulders to the ground. Not once has he been able to gain a true victory. Instead, he has found himself again and again suffering losses to the true Champion of Chaos, to the person with more championship victories than nearly any other single individual in the last year and more. For while people think of Vain’s time as champion to be important, and while Vaughn and Rydell were on the precipice of history...I AM history. Because my house has the stamina.”
She finally releases her death grip on Johnny’s hand and his face smooth outs. The corners of her lips turn up into a smile.
“I have won nineteen matches on Synergy in my time with the UGWC, a number which is nearly DOUBLE the amount of wins that Travis Pierce has had in my time here, regardless of the when or how he got them. Synergy has become MY show, no matter who holds what title, or what insane match I end up in. I have defeated everyone on the roster at some point in time, in a mixture of singles, cooperative, and my own Chaos, while he has only been able to find lasting success when being dragged along by his betters. Synergy is a slog...a constant demand for energy...and it is only I that has shown the stamina needed to find success in such a wide variety of scenarios and situations. Stamina IS the calling of my house. Right this moment, while I am loathe to give them their credit or support, the Grey has shown a stamina that has proven her worth with championship victories, the Blood Princess hoists a tournament cup into the air in Monsieur Lane’s company, and-”
Her eyes dart downward and her voice momentarily comes out in a whisper.
“...Shin is champion...Vaughn is champion…the blood is strong…”
My puddin’s blood! ASK HIM, DAMNIT
The woman raises her eyes again to find Johnny’s sunglasses, and her smile grows.
“What did it feel like, Johnny?”
“Huh? What?”
Even these questions sounds like a gruff “Harumph!” from the man.
“What did it feel like when my husband, il est ressuscité, SLAMMED the Knocker into your head all those years ago. Did it feel-”
She shivers, ecstasy written on her face. Johnny quickly pulls away his hands from hers and throws them into the air.
“CHECK, PLEASE!”
The boom in his voice startles the woman and she shakes her head. By the time the server approaches with their bill, she has blinked several times and seems to be back to herself. As the paper is handed to the woman, Johnny notices the items listed on the check, including the phantom order of crostini and pork loin schmear.
“Wait...what? What is this? Who ate that?”
The woman smiles as she runs her signature across the bottom of the paper with a fine hand.
“Fear, of course. He often joins me for dinner.”
Johnny stares at the woman blankly, then slowly removes his glasses. His dark eyes are filled with incredulity. He opens and closes his mouth several times, trying to form the words to the idea that Phrixus Deimos dined with them tonight yet he never saw the enigmatic man. But the woman looks up with shining eyes full of humor.
“Deimos is always present, Monsieur. Always silently observing. If he does not appear...well...it is only because you failed to notice him.”
She suddenly reaches forward and clasps Johnny’s hands in their death grip again.
“There is a vacuum. This company...it yearns for a group. It years for an alliance. People who wish to pull strings. The Engine. The Court. The Serpents. Others. Nature finds this vacuum to be abhorrent. It HATES it. And it WILL fill it. And if not us?”
She shrugs and looks at the man still gnawing on his bone before turning back to Johnny.
“Better us than my daughters. Better us than men like Scott. Better us than those who would fail to do the right thing. Who fail to embrace the Chaos.
The woman turns her head to the side in a movement so similar to his old nemesis that Johnny cannot stop the shiver that slips through his body, but the smile on her face was nothing he ever saw on the old preacher. That smile was all Ava.
Was all chaos.
x2