Degausser

The 757 is now the perfect team, in my opinion. We have absolutely no faults, and I believe that we can, together, crush almost anything that stands in our way, including Grey. We were puzzle pieces before, but due to what happened today, we were all finally pushed into our correct placements.

Or perhaps a puzzle isn't quite a fair comparison. Maybe we were, before, parts to a watch. Now, we've come together, and we work correctly. We can tell time.

Okay, both comparisons suck, but I think they get the point across fine. This Degausser business has changed us for the better; unlike the little Sowing Season upgrade I got, this might actually be useful.

See, today, we almost crushed Grey. We almost eradicated him from existence. We planned beforehand, met, and almost destroyed him. I swear, we were so fucking close. Christ, I'm sorry, I just have so much aggression left from the fight...and I'm really tired, as well.

Maybe I should let you kiddos in on what happened.

Two days ago, we decided that we wanted to take on Grey without planning ahead with Norman. We decided that we were ready to defeat him. So we thought about how we could find Grey, ...and had no idea how to.

But we figured we had no need to worry. He would have met with us again eventually. He always does.
We also knew, somehow, where we would eventually meet him.
It was in the Western Branch Southern Baptist Church parking lot, which is behind the house I'm living in now (my grandparents' house; I still haven't made an extensive post on my living arrangements, my daily life, or background, have I? I should. Remind me to do that later).

Here's a few pictures of it.

 There is a busy street near on the left, out of view, of these pictures. It was not a smart idea to fight a demon, monster, Fear, whatever, out in the open like that. But we weren't thinking, I swear.

Pure instinct.

The 757 members just showed up at my house, in the middle of the night. And I didn't think of this as weird. Next, we all gathered out into the parking lot, and waited. It was cold, but we hardly noticed. No one talked, at all. We just waited. It was about 2 in the morning when Grey showed up.

Everyone said goodbye to sleep that night. 

I think this staying up, was exactly what we needed.

There was no cliche mist to announce his arrival, nor did he have some type of grand entrance. We only saw him, under the light of one of the streetlights in the middle of the lot. He had changed even more since the last time we saw him. His shoulders were far broader, he was almost as tall as half of one of the streetlights, and his forearms were far larger as well. His eyes...inhuman. They glowed with a feverish light, almost resembling lanterns. His mask, out of his entire body, had gone through the most changes. Huge horns protruded from his head, and his jaw contained huge porcelain teeth. Eyes of an unknown color blazed inside of the mask.

Take apart your head.
Take apart the counting, and the flock it has bred.

We all walked towards Grey, ready to strike him down. The air snapped and cracked around us...the air somehow knew that we were going to be pulling some incredible extrasensory shit in the next few seconds.

Note: To be accurate, we all moved as one entity. If I were to be true to what happened with that in mind, I'd be saying I instead of we from this point forward. However, that would get confusing, so I'll try to stick with just my viewpoint. Degausser is really hard to "get", just through my word alone, I know. It's a confusing technique, and this level of intricacy scares me a bit. 

William Tell began:

Degausser became the Apple of his Eye.

Grey was the Silver Sun; and also the Archer.

Two battles ensued. One was "behind the scenes". Behind the fabric of the universe, far across the ballroom of all dimensions. We were somewhere else. Or at least, I was. While the rest of The 757's minds stayed in contact with their physical bodies, mine seemed to disappear into this other world.
Grey was focusing on me first.

And all the while, clues of the impending approach a storm circled over our heads, and the concrete, in the starless suburban night sky.

Grey made the initial blow. The monster charged like a bull towards us, aiming to stab one of us, any of us, right on through with his horns. We all stepped effortlessly out of the way, and tried hitting at the underside of his head. Aiming with the tips of our fingers, we shot out sharp bullet-like objects at Grey.

I'll never forget the level of surprise that was in that scream of his. The objects burrowed into the sides of him, and he doubled over onto the concrete. Black blood oozed out from the wounds.

He wasn't down for long though.


Goodbye to love.

I was in a gray, cold room, alone. A certain type of darkness pervaded everything, and a sense of urgency tackled me in waves. I felt so dizzy, so lightheaded. Confused, and ultimately curious, I walked around in the daze, searching for something to grab onto. 
Images of Anna drifted throughout my head.
My hand felt across a hard, smooth surface. It drifted up on the surface, and ended up on some type of long, pointy object attached to the surface. Suddenly, eyes of an unknown color lit up the room, and set on me. 

Well, it's a ride that will push you up

Right against the wall

It was Grey. He quickly pushed up against me, grabbed at my throat, and tackled me into the wall. The smell of death drifted out of his mouth. He spoke, but no words drifted out along with the smell. Just pure noise. In his hand, appeared some type of dark iron square....he pushed it into my mouth, and smashed plenty of my teeth up. Bits of them crumbled to the floor, and blood splattered all over my skin, clothes, and feet.

Chew it up and swallow it

You're brought back, but you're running.
Grey gets up and jumps away from us, sending up a cloud of dust and gravel. He moved quite fast, for his size. We all moved close together, into almost a circle, and prepared another Degausser attack. Gray sparks and blots drifted out of all of our hands. 
Andrew shook with fear, while Patrick and Markus had smirks of some kind contort their faces.
Keil muttered something to himself in the darkness. Steven and Luca were silent.

I fell asleep in the alkaline.

But then the circle between us closed, set, locked itself, and the extra emotions they were feeling disappeared. We were all completely, finally one, and were cool, calm, collected. Sowing Season was shared from me to them, and their rational use of Fear was given to me.
I can't shake this little feeling
I truly believe that we were the ultimate weapon then. I was the sword, and they were the shield.
I'll never get anything right.
Grey aimed for us and began another charging attack. This time, we weren't going to sidestep his attack. we all bent down to our knees, and put our hands to the cold concrete, and waited for the precise moment.
A gray wall of pure energy burst up from the ground, in a giant wave, and crashed against Grey. It sliced and tore at Grey as it landed on him, sending him crashing into the ground. 

Goodbye you liar.
 I was pushed through the wall, and fell to another surface. Blood sprayed out of my mouth, with pieces of tooth trailing along with the liquid. Bursts of pain exploded within my body. My head felt like it was collapsing, in that moment. Bits of the metal that had chipped off as it had collided with my teeth pushed down into my throat, choking me bit by bit. 
Well, you sipped from the cup, but you don't own up to anything.
I was dying.I fell to some unknown floor, and tried to crawl away from the hole in the wall. Spots of blood appeared on the floor as I crawled...I was losing a ton of it. I knew I was going to die...I couldn't stop the inevitable. I could only hope to be pulled away from the nightmare...

Then you think you will inspire.

I stopped and looked back to one of the pools of blood I had left behind. I inched back towards it, and dipped my fingers into it. Using the blood as an ink source, I wrote on the unknown ground the first thing that came to my mind; the thing I thought would help me most escape from the nightmare.

Take apart your head.

Space cadet, pull out.

(And I wish I could inspire)

Grey appears behind me, and speaks again. Again, no words, just pure white noise. Grey jumps through the hole in the wall, and walks over the blood on the unknown floor, towards me. Images of Anna condense into solid visions of love and longing within me, but they are torn apart by Grey's oncoming rampage.
 Something wraps around my leg; one of his wire like appendages. It inches up my leg, slowly. My body begins to shake with shivers and aches, while Grey finally take my body for his own....

Take apart the demon, 

up in the attic, to the left.

Goodbye my love.

You're brought back, but you're running.

The gray energy dissipates, and Grey slowly rises up. Parts of his mask fall off of his head, and large quantities of blood spill out from his mouth. Bits of the once large teeth in said mask fall along with the blood. For a few seconds, Grey says softly something about a Space Cadet, before backing up away from us, out of earshot. He seemed almost scared, like a human, in that bit of time. But underneath all of that, I almost could have sworn I heard him chuckle...

I fell asleep in the alkaline.

Grey jumps up, into the night sky. Like, literally, far up above us. He blocked out the moon. He then crashed down towards us, and surrounding him, thousands of wiry tendrils with the aim of picking us all apart, piece by piece. We formed another Degaussed barrier to stop Grey, but this time, he broke through.

(I've been on pause, but I'm shaking off the rust)

The Degaussed barrier broke apart like glass, only the pieces disappeared instead of falling to the ground. Grey landed in between the 7 of us, and the wires stabbed at each of us. We all formed tiny little shields in the air, but we all still received tiny cuts regardless. No one was fully stabbed, however.

I can't shake this tiny feeling

Grey reels around, and jumps towards my physical body. A shield could not be formed to stop him that time, so I tried forming myself a weapon instead; a hammer. We had not practiced weapons that much, so we had been nervous the energy used to make the hammer wouldn't be able to focus, and would just drift away in the air, but it didn't. I swung the hammer, aiming for Grey's face, but missed. Grey saw the opening, and immediately took it. His tail pushed up from around his body, and whipped directly into my chest.

(I've lost my charge; I've been degaussed) 

Up in the air in a few seconds, down to the ground in another few. I tried to soften the impact with another degausser shield, but I could not focus well enough to form one.

(I'm on my own; I've been degaussed)

Sound stabs into my ears and I hear Grey laughing. He pulls me closer and closer, into his body. The wires begin to wrap around me, and one last tooth falls out of my mouth

I'll never say anything right

(I'm on my own; I've been degaussed)

Sound leaves everything for a second as I skid across the pavement. Degausser breaks, the formation breaks, and Grey sees the opening. The 757 are left defenseless.

I'll never say anything right

(I'm on my own; I've been degaussed)

The sound of a bus stopping and opening to let schoolchildren on fills my head. 
I see a familiar face look back at me as I watch from afar...I'm trying to yell something to her, but she cannot hear me.

I'll never say anything right

Everything collides into one. Before I'm dragged completely into Grey, the mark on my chest...the number 1, begins to glow. Grey, who was before focusing intently on me with his glaring eyes, was now focusing on something behind me. I heard a coy growl...turned around, and Daisy sat there, behind me.
As she jumped towards Grey, the wall I was laying on shattered. Some sort of energy, completely white in color, erupted up from the underworld.

I'm on my own.

I was back in my body, with all of my teeth.  However, my clothes were torn up a bit, and blood soaked my jeans. I got up, and looked around for Grey. The 757 stood across the way, looking at me...they were moving around, as if trying to communicate something to me, but my ears just were not working at that point.
Suddenly, behind me, Grey appeared...and jumped down onto me.
I was, again, pulled away from  Earth. Or, more accurately, pushed. The concrete melted, or liquified, and we passed through it. We were in some type of body of water...somewhere else, yet again. Grey pushed me down deeper, and deeper, until I hit something solid; a mattress.
A mattress underwater.

Take me, take me back to your bed.
Grey held me to the bed....and then he took off his mask and robe. At first, my eyes perceived Grey as the usual...a writhing mass of wires, with some human corpse at the center; but after a few blinks of the eye,  he transformed. He was Anna...and as he holds down my wrists so I cannot fight back, he kisses me. Anna's smell was there, ...but also, underneath, the smell of rotting flesh.

I love you so much that it hurts my head. 

Blood trickles down the side of my mouth as where the skin and the lip meet, break away from the kiss. His eyes...they had a color I could recognize again; Anna's color. She leans in, and tells me to Say,

"I don't mind you under my skin; 

let the bad parts in, the bad parts in...."

I felt Grey's energy start to slip into me...he was almost completely in control of my body when it happened; I felt, from across the void, The 757, reaching out to me. Energy flowed violently throughout my body, empowering me. Degausser switched itself back on. Grey didn't seem to notice, and kept on talking.

"Well, when we were made, we were set apart."

I see two spinal cords leading to two skulls intertwine. A hand from above takes the two cords, and separates them. The hand then casts the two skulls into different parts of the dark sea...

"Life is a test, and I get bad marks."

A milestone, which used to be sitting in a field in an abandoned forest, is thrown out into the same dark sea...

"Now some saint got the job of writing down my sins?"

A boat, lit up with the glow of a fading lantern, turns over, forcing the mysterious man inside of it to be thrown into the dark sea...
"The storm is coming-"
"THE STORM IS COMING IN!!!" 
I scream for him. I punch into Grey, hiding inside of Anna's body, and tackle him. We fly through the water, up, and we break back into the Church parking lot. Black blood spills all over my body, and I catch a glimpse into the hole I had made into Grey....a black heart beats frantically.

You're brought back but you're running.

The Degaussing starts back up again, full force. The 757 become one unit, one entity.

I fell asleep in the alkaline.

We form another giant wave of gray energy. If I had been able to express a singular emotion, I would have laughed at how much we resembled superheroes in that moment. It slams, crashes, utterly devastates Grey.

I can't shake this little feeling.

We hear the mask crumble apart completely. We hear Grey grind against the pavement. Black blood completely drenches the landscape.

I'll never get anything right.

I'm on my own.
I feel faint, and fall to the ground. A vision pops into my head, of the bus stop again.
I'll never get anything right.
Except this time, on the side of the bus, is a phrase, written in gray spray paint.
I'm on my own.

evil and Good Are Raging Inside Me

I'm suddenly in a bedroom. The room has a hole in the wall, and a bed absolutely soaked with blood and water. Fragments of tooth litter the floor.

Take me, take me back to your bed.

 Grey sits on the bed. This time, he looks exactly like me.

I love you so much that it hurts my head.

He gets up, and grabs me...pulls me close.

I don't mind you under my skin.

He kisses me....with tongue. That's not the worst part, though; blood, pieces of teeth, and water polluted my entire mouth afterwards...had to choke back the vomit. And then, I suddenly say, as if I'm being controlled:

"I'll let the bad parts in, the bad parts in."

Grey chuckles, and steps behind me.

"Well, you're my favorite bird, and when you sing

I really do wish that you'd wear my ring.

No matter what they say, I'm still the king.

Now the storm is coming-"

Boom. A flash of lighting crashes above us.

"The storm is coming in." Andrew says.

I'm on the ground...surrounding me, the rest of The 757. They are all crouching down, bending over...at first, I thought they were trying to gather around me for some reason, possibly to fix one of the multiple injuries that was bleeding out onto the concrete, but then I realized that they were in extreme pain too.

Prolonged Degaussing almost killed us. We need to be more careful, it seems.

I was so angry, so sad, at first, when I awoke on  the concrete.
But then, I saw all the black blood around us...

We had hurt Grey. This wasn't some feint. He had been seriously hurt! Maybe even close to death.
So, I smiled, and laughed. The 757 looked at me with a puzzled look, but then they joined in on the laughter.
Rain touched down, and washed away the black and red blood that had marked the battleground around us.
We all laid down and let the rain wash away all our worries.

Grey had escaped...but we made him bleed.
Next time, we'll do far more than that.