When you've been enhanced, altered beyond the sense of the word normal or human. Life takes on a whole new concept and understanding. A brand new perspective must be adhered to, almost religiously. You gotta learn a higher state of control. Constantly remindin' yourself that the rest of the world around ya... for the most part, can't understand this. The asshole that pisses you off in the supermarket, infuriates you in traffic or generally disregards you as a fucking person, doesn't realize what you're capable of doing. Knowledge of what someone walks into, when they provoke you, isn't privy to them. They don't realize how lucky they are. They got to walk away. That you only tossed them a sarcastic comment and a middle finger or simply ignored them as a waste of time and walked away your damn self. That constant maintenance of self-control is a balance and a brand new way of existence, entirely. Something that you have to learn and adapt to after the change. The transformation you underwent that enhanced your body and mind past the ordinary, genetic code of humanity. Turned you into a living weapon. A fuckin' monster. A freak.

The great majority of people, the masses, the human cattle out there, don't get that concept. It's like a foreign language to them, spoken by an expert scholar at an incredible speed and skill. It surpasses their minds, conscious thought and their true understanding of things, turning into a blurry mass of light and colors mixed with a jumble of noise, until it shifts into a virtual car crash coming at them. Violent and frightening. The scariest part though is that there are times that you, yourself aren't even fully aware of what you're capable of when you don't initiate this level of control. What you can do to someone if you just fucking let go and unleashed everything you got.

Past the point of fightin' or wrestling. When you simply toss caution out the window and say fuck it, lets go and release every bit o' fury you've got. Cause even in combat, you still understand there's an aspect of control that must be kept. Maintaining the awareness of who you're facing and realizing that you can't kill every motherfucker in front of you. Even when you're objective calls for death, there's still a level of order to that motive. A balance. A system must be maintained. It's a maddening priority but it's also a necessary priority. A way to keep a low key profile, don't attract too much attention to yourself and a code that you're strictly reminded to adhere to for your own sake. At least that's what you're told, though you're not told much more than that. Nah. This is all stuff you pick up on your own. Such is the life of a living weapon.

So you learn to control yourself at all times. You find that balance, bind yourself to that perfect order and stick to that shit like glue. Folks don't get that you're doing this though, fuck it, who cares? You know you let that cunt walk away with the ability to keep breathing. This allows you that center of gravity and absolute clarity, to remind yourself that because you don't know what happens, when you full on lose control, that's the reason that you stop yourself. Sure. Release your aggression or anger. Fight with reckless abandon but always remind yourself, to not completely let go. Oh what a chaotic contradiction.

How do you unleash your wild, intense, fury and still remain in constant awareness and control? Well, that right there, is like walkin' on a dangerously, thin tight rope and only a select few, are truly capable of this feat. It takes skill and is considered a gift by those that undergo the same conditioning that you did. Few can pull this feat off. There are those that can't and never will be able to do this. The total loose canons, they're considered defective and never leave the place where they were created... or rather, reborn.

These abominations, only get pulled out under really, extreme circumstances. Full blown war. Take no prisoners. You die or they do kinda stuff. These unfortunate creatures stay sedated, locked up and never see the light of day again. You know this. You understand this and you never want this to be you. So you use this fact, to remind yourself that while you're on a leash, so to speak and you live to serve, totally obedient to following the orders that you're given, at least you're not those fuckin' poor bastards that are locked away in storage. Kept under strict lock and key until you gotta go out there and take a squad of men down. That it might be you against a fucking tank (That isn't a ghost.) or an army of tanks and the odds are not stacked in your favor... at all, but say that you pull it off, your thanks... your gift is to get put back into a box, until you're desperately needed again. You aren't a life, you aren't even deemed a living weapon, you're nothing but an expendable thing. An object meant to be used until it can't be used any further. Yeah, that's a real motivational aid for executing self-control. Fuck. You make it your personal god damn priority, number one.

Of course there are those other exceptional reasons. For instance when you find yourself, never wanting to show that side of you to someone else. A guy like me, keeps that desire as an option that is unnecessary though. A risk factor that is unacceptable. For fear of that someone else, learning who I really am. To never worry about keeping another's safety in mind at all costs, even when I'm not near them. Avoidance of the risk factor. Never putting anyone in harms way cause what I do is dangerous and unpredictable. That being close to me is about as safe as loving an active grenade with a loose pin. To never have to be in constant fright of the possibility that the person I care about, might fall onto the radar of those that I work for and honestly, I never would want that to happen. Because then there's always that chance, that instability, that proverbial house of cards in front of a fan, that sticks to my business operations with - The Order, forever.

The objective, the mission, the directive, comes first. Always. Above all else. No questions asked. Once it's known, there's someone in my life that might change that, then they're always watched and targeted as a source for failure or a reason for non-compliance. A jeopardy and a risk factor, that can and will be removed from the equation, at any time, if The Order deems it necessary. That's a damn, fuckin' nightmare right there, if you ask me. I already know life on the edge but that is a whole new standard of ball game. Like walkin' out to a baseball field wearing a soccer uniform and carrying a basketball, kinda different. What the fuck are you supposed to do?

I avoided this scenario before. Or better described, I ran away from it. I knew this chick, Olive Pendershore. Met her through wrestling for the XWF, the first time. We had the wrestling shit in common, it was nice but it was dangerous. So when I split, I left her behind. For her sake, I tell myself but really, I did it for myself also... or maybe, primarily cause that constant worry was getting to be too fuckin' much. I don't know. What I do know is that I stopped questioning my motives for that shit a long time ago.

I lived a solitary life. After that, things became simple and clear. There wasn't that unavoidable, impending guillotine blade hovering over me, waiting to drop. The ax never fell and the fear of it fallin' didn't exist. Then, I met... her, and before I even knew it... it was happening, again. The most unlikely source too. Lila Laroque. Azrael Erebus' damn daughter. How the hell did that shit happen? I'm not a guy who believes in fate or serendipity. That garbage is for the birds, man. Yet there I was trapped in the wake of her gaze and I folded. Collapsed. Gave in to temptation and allowed her access in. Past those invisible protective walls, that I built, secured and so wearily, kept in place and allotted myself the things that I told myself I never would. The ability to care about someone and the capacity to worry about their safety.

This didn't happen right away though. Hell no, this wasn't something that happened overnight. No fuckin' ways. I thought things were cool. That I had it under control. Just like everything else. Boy, was I wrong. That girl came into my life and like a tiny wrecking ball; unbeknownst to my ass, brought down my walls and destroyed my entire defensive infrastructure. Brought it crashing down to the very foundation and that ain't something that happens every damn time a female comes around. I mean... yeah, I learned to live a solitary life but I didn't give up fuckin' or deny myself the pleasure of certain urges. I just never made anything serious or even remotely casual out of it.

Not this time though. Nope. I got hit by her like a sucker punch outta nowhere. Lila came along and she conquered. I was powerless to stop it. Shit. I didn't even realize it was happening, until it fuckin' happened but by then... truthfully, I didn't want to stop it. Fuck it. It is what it is. I accepted the facts and now, I gotta figure out what to do. Do I take things as they are, live in constant fear and worry about that hanging anvil, ready to fall? Learn to live that double life around someone important to me? Again? Or do I figure out another option? One that could be significantly worse and still end in tragedy, for the both of us?

See... this is why I smoke pot all the damn time. This kinda malarkey can send my thoughts on a spiral. Well, that and to shut out all the other damn crap, that I don't want to have screwin' with my head, but have no choice on the matter. Turning your brain off isn't that easy when you've been modified like I have, and forgetting things... really forgettin' shit, that ain't an option. Like walking into a room and being able to know every possible escape route or knowing the components of every object in that room and how to put them together, to either fix the items or turn them into something else useful. Turn 'em into weapons or whatever might be vital depending on the circumstances, should escape be the course that I need to take. Yeah, that goes for machinery and electronics too. Smart choice becoming a mechanic, right? Thought about that one for a long while too, I just can't seem to deny myself the thing I really dig outta life though. I'm so good at it, it's like it's a part of me now and defines who I am. As fuckin' stupid as that might seem, it's the god damn truth. I'm Griffin "The Mechanic" MacAlister and that's who, I'll always be.

Then there's the memories, everything that I've done and seen. It's my own dark pit of self torment and torture. An abyss of suffering. It can poison the soul and corrupt the mind, if you let it. Take you over like a cancer. A disease, relentless in destruction. I might be a living weapon but that doesn't mean I can't feel or at times, regret. I just don't have a choice in what I do. I made that choice a long fuckin' time ago and in exchange for one fate, I was given this one. Signed willingly, on the metaphorical dotted line and accepted a life that I would never know the true meaning of until it was already too late, to reverse it. Now I live with that and carry out what needs to be done. I am the perfect weapon.

So here I am, the mechanic.. the weapon... in a relationship, with Lila Laroque. Dreading the decisions that need to be made. Having to make choices. Wonderin' if they'll be the right ones. Not wanting to sacrifice or lose anything but knowin' full well, this can only end in loss. Ha! Maybe, if I'm lucky, Poppa Erebus will transport me into the center of the sun for hookin' up with his daughter and I won't have to figure this shit out. Or maybe, he might actually be the answer to all of this. Hmmm... curious, I wonder.