OOC: Posting a little early so I can format in peace.


Continued from: Ned Kaye and Urias Pheelanruff in: Endless, Nameless & Feelings Day

Urias had a notepad out. Ned was so used to seeing his psychiatrist in a silly outfit or with a planned scheme of the day. And while there would certainly be many more days where Pheelanruff would follow the trend, today was one of the few occasions where it was unthinkable. Because today Ned promised to divulge the incident at the megachurch. That said, it was hard to not see the Doc as at least a little silly looking with a comically undersized notepad, but deep down Ned was well aware he was just trying to focus on the lighter aspects instead of thinking back to the day they had experienced together. Urias cleared his throat, clearly not as comfortable as usual given his increased feeling of authority and the unspoken weight of the subject matter.

"Well, buddy… where do you wanna start?"

Struggling to open his mouth, Kaye reviewed the memories as he sat in a discomfiting silence.

"Bell's "Most Devout" had brought us to his office once his sermon was over. Rachel looked over to me. I could tell she was furious, yet scared of what Bell had to say. This guy was the chief lamb of the flock to her, you know that. But it felt like a deeper fear than that. Perhaps she realized how dangerous a righteous man with wicked means could be. When we walked in, he seemed amicable enough, but it was the second he offered us water that everything took a turn for the worse."

---

When they walked in, Bell’s back was turned. He hated showing his face for free on normal occasions, but the disruptive two who had nearly ruined one of his live shows? Oh, they’d pay for that beautiful grin of his in some manner. He poured a few glasses of water, eyeing the one he would claim carefully when a voice interrupted his brief moment to himself.

“Sir, we have the two here for you.”

Michael Bell darted his eyes to a reflective portion of a picture frame to see a regular of his televised sermons and… a peculiar familiar face. Ned Kaye. Perhaps this was more worth his time than he had first anticipated. He swung around, putting on that photogenic smile of his and placing two of the glasses of water in where they were to sit.

“Thank you, Brother Ben. Please take a seat, my guests. I know my Most Devout can be somewhat forceful from time to time. I understand that you two were arguing during my program?”

Rachel jumped for the chance to answer, clearly upset by her association with a man seeped in blasphemy at the moment.

“I allowed myself to succumb to anger, Mr. Bell. I’m so, so, so sorry for interrupting your sermon! I got frustrated due to a difference in… perspective! It will never happen again.”

Bell motioned for her to take a drink of the water, one of his Most Devout grabbing the remaining glass of water from behind him and placing it in Michael’s hand.

“Perhaps you should calm down. Please take a drink. And you, as well, Mr..?”

Ned scanned his eyes over Bell, the mistrust in his face apparent, although he clearly hadn’t counted on mistrusting the drink before him. Ned took a sip before replying, “Mr. Kaye.”

“Ah. Are there any things I can clear up for you two?”

“Actually,” Ned chimed up as Rachel’s lips were firmly against her glass, “there’s something I’ve been curious about. Some… merchandise a friend and I found.”

Bell’s eyes lit up. He wasn’t entirely prepared for Ned to realize just how much good he had done for Bell’s wallet before then, but he could certainly rake in a lot more cash as long as the initiation went smoothly. All Michael needed was a few more minutes.

“What so ever do you mean, Mr. Kaye?”

---

Kaye ran his fingers through his hair, clearly embarrassed at the thought of falling for such a ploy. He couldn’t have known, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should have anyway.

“He must’ve slipped a strong, fast acting hallucinogen in our drinks because everything began to melt together, the noises, the visions. I heard a click and then I felt myself fall through the floor. Likely just a trap door, but it seemed like sinking into the building itself. Just getting dragged down to Hell. When I came to, I was in some sort of… set made to approximate Hell or purgatory. I know it must’ve been something he had made to pray upon people’s hallucinations, but it obviously didn’t feel like that in the moment.”

“Slow down, Ned! Are you tryin’ to tell me that you thought you had actually gone to Hell?”

Gulping as he held his arms crossed against him, Ned nodded.

“For a little bit, yeah… I did.”

---

Darkness. Overwhelming absence of light. Of sound or feeling or anything. Just a sensation of diving into pure endless nothingness. A cold touch brushed against Ned’s head as he limply plunged into the abyss below. Steel? A slide? Something normal or explainable? He wasn’t certain anymore. His thought couldn’t focus long enough on any one aspect to the experience and as soon as one left another entered its place. He was still falling. Was anything going to catch him? Is this how he would die, falling forever? Screams begin to fill the silent void that cascaded over him. Like a chorus of pure anguish that drilled its way into his skull, further scrambling his ability to perceive. Ned felt something cold against the back of his head. Did he already notice it? He reached up to feel his hair, the screams getting louder. He couldn’t tell if his was one of the chorus. Abruptly, everything stopped. He ran his fingers over his face, feeling each individual hair brush his fingertips.

Then, a light. Its hue was a blood red. Somehow, despite the first chance to see anything, the black space around him felt bigger than ever. Ever more deep and infinite. A sweltering heat filled the air and Ned saw a monstrous face cut through the sea of crimson light. It twisted in ways Ned didn’t believe he was capable of imagining, but the smile cut through him daggers. It seemed so familiar. Like he was watching Ethan dangled from the rafters again. Was it Corey’s face in the flames?

Ned didn’t stare for long enough to identify it. He scurried like a coachroach away from the harsh lights, his fingers scratching against the ground to escape. He had to find a way out. As he crawled through the void, the bleeding portal to the underworld becoming less visible behind him, his hand grasped onto something. A foot? A leg? He looked up, a white light burning his eyes as he saw one of the Most Devout standing there, kneeling to help Ned to his feet.

“H-help…”

“Patience, Brother Ned. You are in no harm.”

He walked Ned further into the bright, cleansing dawn of white, lush plants surrounding them with every step the Most Devout made.

---

“Jeez-us. How long did they help you out?”

“I don’t know. It felt like days, but it was probably just an hour or two. They made me feel so safe while I was there. I was so close to becoming just another one of Bell’s brainwashed minions. And not the ones watching him on TV.”

“That’s… that’s an incredibly traumatic experience, Ned. What do you think saved you from falling down that rabbit hole further after they’d messed with your mind so much.”

Exhaling, Ned seemed to stare past Urias, his answer fairly clear.

“It’s just that. They messed with my mind. It’s not a fun place to be.”

---

“Brother Ned, what seems to be the matter?”

Ned Kaye trembled in the makeshift chair the Most Devout had made for him. He stared at their faces. They had been whispering soothing words into his ears, but their faces kept shifting as he sat there. He looked at the source of the voice.

“Brother Ned.”

It was his father’s face. It was wrong. His father was dead. This was all wrong.

“You need to give him a bit, he’s obviously acting in an… unexpected way.”

His head jerked to view the next voice, sounding like that of a woman’s. Her face was Lilian’s. Lilian hadn’t been alive for years and yet her face was right there smiling in the softest of ways. But it never stopped twisting.

“He’ll calm down eventually. He only needs a few more trials left before he’s a full blown initiate and can receive some greater training.”

Once again, Ned forced his head to identify the source of the voice, eyes scanning over hands that held him in place. That’s when he saw the last face. His own.

Ned began to violently fling himself around breaking free of the Most Devout’s hold on him.

“S-stay back.”

Ned backpedalled away from them, their faces horrified as his pace increased.

“Somebody get a hold of him!”

His backward stride became greater as he fled the group until he went to step and was met with thin air.

“Stay ba-“

The real fall felt so much different from the manufactured one. From whatever this illusion was that they had for him. The light vanished as the shadows enveloped his body. When he finally touched the bottom, he could feel a drip down his cheek. His unsteady fingers trailed over his forehead before he squinted to see if he could make out the color. There wasn’t enough light. He looked behind him to the see the red again. The fiery Hell he had fled from earlier. In need of light, he stepped closer. He could see more as he grew nearer and nearer, the blood clearly beginning to drip down his forehead and cover his face. A face. He remembered there was a face in the vision of flames. He stepped closer, noticing the twisted face still there in the portal. He stepped closer.

And the face in the portal followed suit. He could make out the details. He knew the body. He should. It was his.

“Are you the devil?” asked The Spectre.

Ned’s lip trembled as he focused on the distorted vision of himself.

“What?”

“That’s what you asked me when we first met, Ned. Do you really not remember?”

“I-… I-…”

The Spectre interrupted him.

“Don’t tell me some hack selling shirts of your face really got the best of you, Ned. Maybe you’re more hopeless than I realized. No wonder Ethan ditched you.”

“He didn’t ditch me.”

The blood wet Ned’s hair, draping it over his face.

“He just needs time.”

“Is that what he told you? And did you always tell him the truth when you needed time away from him?”

Silence from Ned.

“I thought so. What a predicament you’ve pulled us both into again. You really aren’t great at holding the reigns are you, Ned?”

“What are you getting at?”

The lights shot on, illuminating whatever strange compound existed beneath the megachurch.

“You need to get out of here. I’d like to kick loose a little. Simple overlapping priorities is all.”

“I got out of an avalanche without you. I don’t need you.”

“Need? Maybe, maybe not. The real question is what does Bell deserve you or…?”

The Spectre shrugged with a grin, holding his hand towards Ned.

“His own personal devil?”

Ned stared at his doppelganger’s hand, feeling the urge to give in a little. To brutalize a man who had looked to take away every part of Ned that made him special and turn him into a machine for profit.

---

“It was tempting. I just- I wanted Bell to hurt so badly that I’d do almost anything at that point. I just wanted to put him in that spot. To make him feel helpless for a little.”

Pheelanruff put down the notepad.

“So, you shook this vision’s hand?”

“What? What does it matter? It was an illusion. It was just as fake as his merch of me.”

“Ned. Did you shake his hand?”

Ned stuttered indignantly.

“N-no! No, absolutely not! I wouldn’t ever. But I was tempted to, that’s all.”

Urias sighed in immense relief.

“Jeez, Ned, you really had me worried there for a second! That kinda thing would NOT reflect well on your mental health one bit, lemme tell ya that! But you made a good choice! That took a lot of strength Ned! You should be proud of yourself.”

With a nod, Ned seemed to agree.

“So, is that when you found me?”

Taking a moment to think, Ned paused.

---

The Most Devout screamed as Ned approached, the crimson mask dripping down locks of hair as he approached them. They’d never been in a fight before, let along against a professional fighter. He lifted one of them to their feet, the horror of the man not phasing Ned for a second.

“Bell has been putting my face on shirts. You’re going to tell me where he’s printing all of this.”

“D-don’t hurt me!”

The man struggled in Ned’s hands, squirming uselessly as he desperately tried to escape. He seemed to mistake Ned’s eyes for the very portal that he had assisted in manufacturing. Ned replied calmly as droplets of blood dripped upon the white garb of the Most Devout.

“I won’t have to hurt you if you tell me what I want to know.”

---

“More or less.”

“And that’s when we high-tailed it out of there, right?”

“Yeah! I think that’s all of it.”

Urias frowned, placing his pen aside.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all of that, buddy, but I’m glad you’ve opened up about talking about it. Besides, you’re doing better than ever after all those. They might have pressed on you a bit, but you’re a strong kid! They can’t beat you up any worse than ol’ Chris Chaos did and look where he is?”

Ned chuckled before giving a confused look to his therapist.

“And where’s that?”

“Hell if I know!”

The two share a laugh, Ned seeming a little distant at the end.

“What’s wrong, buddy?”

“Oh, nothing, just-… I wish I knew whatever happened to Rachel. I wasn’t interested in dating her, but she was a really nice friend and I just feel bad I haven’t talked to her since."

Urias sat uncomfortably in his chair, words sticking to the back of his throat before he swallowed them, quickly diverting from the subject.

“Well, you know what a good day of therapy means!”

“No. No, I do not.”

Urias flung up a chest filled with doo-dads and knick-knacks.

“Activities!”

“Can I pass?” Asked Ned in a dull manner.

“They’re mandatory!”

Ned chuckled it off and got up from his seat, feeling a little more comfortable after the session, even if he was just about to recite Hamilton parodies for the rest of the day. It was nice to have someone to open up to again, even a quack like Urias.

---

---

---

I'm the wreck of you
I'm the death of you all

"A good salesman can sell anything. Earrings. Shoes. Tacky furniture. Hope. The Slap-Chop. Salvation. Hell, armageddon itself can be merchandised by a tongue with enough silver in it. And Baphomet's mouth is awfully shiny."

“Look, I’m not gonna pretend like I haven’t had run-ins with the disturbingly religious before, but The Left Hand is far different. It’s not just an anarchic stew of likeminded people, but rather a curated to fit someone’s bleak ends. Here we have people who should have futures. Who should be able to walk into any company and make their mark in bold ways and they’re being used as a lone man’s Addams Family so he can profit off their hard work with exposure of his vague, undefined beliefs. And like so many cult leaders before him, he marched to the impressionable and the uncertain for his goals. If The Left Hand has been targeting me or complicit, it answers so much. You saw another talent you could try to weaken for a quick buck, didn’t you, Baph? Well, I’m not for sale, no matter how many times you send a masked man to attack me.”

“But I’m not fighting Baph, but one of his randomly selected minions alongside his two favorites. And while he won’t physically be in that ring, his presence will be felt nonetheless. These are his project children. The two he’s molded as best as he can into weapons and walking advertisements for his doomsday cult. So much talent utilized by a man who couldn’t understand a lick of it. So much talent wasted. Lycana and Marf should be setting their own paths, but they instead ride his road to oblivion without even realizing it.”

“Marf is frustrating because I feel like you can almost tell his heart isn’t into the prophecies and inert spiritualism he’s surrounded with. The more I see of him, the more passion he is bereft of. The more of his soul is drained as though Baphomet’s one true ritual was that to remove the heart of a fighter and replace it with a vacant glare. This man should be a tag team champion. He should be a threat in this match and he’s already being upstaged in importance by an unknown combatant. How long until you realize that The Left Hand ties yours together. It has to be this match, Marf. I want you to see what lies just a little beyond your view. Outside of your palace where wrestling isn’t some activity, but a lifestyle and an art. I want to see that passion from you! But as long as you obey your superiors, even unwillingly or at a snail’s pace, you’ll be stuck stalling on that trail to nowhere and that’s the greatest tragedy I can imagine.”

“But the one most intent on seeing that road to its bitter end? That’s you, Lycana. You’ve made it your entire personality to represent The Left Hand and you do a wonderful job of it. The petty need for vengeance. The importance of a thoroughly masked face, caked in make-up. The ability to fight for something that isn’t yourself. Why do you think The Left Hand hemorrhaged members in the way it did, Lycana? It wasn’t the changing of moon cycles, people saw that they were being used, but you have volunteered yourself as a tool for your faction over your own being. And just like the man who shapes you, you have many words and nothing to say. For all of the theatre and performance, you do little more than recite endless Jenny Myst outtakes. I wonder if you know just how much you squander with every raise of that left arm. I wonder if you know what you signed when you sold your soul away because you won’t get it back by fighting for the man who holds it captive.”

“The Left Hand is brought together by loose belief in an uncertain truth. But myself, Demos, and Edgar? We don’t always agree, but we stand up for the right things in the face of any threat. Of any pain. Of any foe. And you have just been put in the very, very unlucky position of facing all of us at once. Do you know how badly you have fucked up to get to this point? Sure, plenty of today’s trendy asshole alliances have banded together against one of us, but never three of us at the same time! You can call it a cleansing light. You can call it an old-fashioned ass whooping. You can call it a clash of ideals and principles exploding in a momentous occasion with a trio designed to dismantle you at you core! Call it all of those things and more because armageddon is coming, but it won’t be dressed in a goat mask with horns.”

“It will be three men who are long tired of you toying with this fed. So, remember the 17th, Left Hand. You’ll have to record your doomsday somewhere.”

"You can't run from yourself."