Chapter Eight: Watching

Chapter Eight: Watching

The Golem

The Golem watched events unfold with an excitement it hadn't felt in a long time. It couldn't imagine its luck, it being the Golem reject, the failure, the screw up that only messed things up, at finding the eleventh member of the Pantheon. The brother of Nemesis (formally known as Angelica Dolore), Nicoli Dolore; they'd be most pleased with the news. To be one step closer to there goal of a new and pure human race. One without the plague known as Lesser Humans. The scum of the Earth, only good enough to be used when they were dead; as Animate.

When that happened, when the Pantheon finally achieved its goal, then...then Golems could roam freely, without fear of being shunned or shot at by those who didn't understand them. They could finally truly live. To be. It was why they agreed to help those fire eyed humans, they just wanted to be on the winning side, the side that would give them the most perks.

Everyone loves comfort right?

The Golem watched in one part fascination and two parts horror as the young Dolore's power sprang from him. It could see the invisible threads connecting the boy to the Animate, giving him control over them. It was incredible, the boy had power over life, to manipulate their bodies...the Golem couldn't imagine what he'd be able to do when he completed his transformation...but...something...something was not right. The golem could feel it, it was why he had yet to approach the young Pantheon member, he had a feeling the Dolore would not welcome his arrival with joy.

Something was fighting against the Virus inside of him, burning its way through the boy's body, fighting the Virus into submission. He could see it through the pain that showed throughout his young face. In how his eyes where flickering between their kaleidoscope of red, orange, yellow and white, the color of flames, to his normal dark brown. He was resisting, and the Golem had the feeling the Virus would lose. But how? Why? Something like that  had never happened before in the process of turning into a Panthoneon.

Nicoli Dolore gasped suddenly, and the Golem saw the invisible strings snap, the Animate crumpling to a heap all around them while a maniac in a jeep drove into the building, flinging grenades and screaming bloody murder. The Golem ducked and hid deeper in the shadows. It was glad it's form was made of rock, it was able to blend in with the surroundings just fine. Some of his other friends like the the technology Golem, the one they call "T", if it'd been in the Golem's position it'd have stood out like a black sheep in a flock of white.

The boy's in the vehicle jumped out and dashed over to the tall broad tanned man of color who was holding their injured companion. No one was paying attention to Dolore.

The injured boy coughed, "Where's...Nicoli?" Ok so someone was paying attention...but...not on the truck.

The Golem grinned and began slinking over to the vehicle. It might as well stake out what their enemies camp looked like. His entire platoon of Animate were destroyed, the more information he had the greater the reward would be for himself.

"What da' hell was that?" The Tan Man asked as the golem climbed under the truck.

"Whatcha' mean man?" The one blonde asked.

"Da' Animate, they screamed aftah', Nicoli flipped out, an' Animate nevah' scream." The group was silent for a moment, all eyes training on the now unconscious boy, "Just what is he?"

"Human..." The mouse-haired woman whispered, the first thing she'd said since getting splattered with blood, "Just like he said. Whatever it is he did, he did it to protect us."

"Get...him...in...the...truck." The Injured boy commanded much to the blondes annoyance, the Golem had a feeling the two didn't get along. Interesting. The curly haired Latino and skinny African-American, exchanged a glance, before the African-American shrugged and bent to lift up Nicoli. They made to return to the truck and the Golem quickly slid underneath it, hanging onto the bottom and pressing itself flush against it.

It saw the shadows and heard the voices as the group approached, the Golem gulped and held on tighter and it felt the vehicle shake and tremble with the weight of its passengers. Soon the truck started, an ancient thing, it still used wheels, how in the world it was still even remotely working was beyond  it, but at least it meant the Golem could hang on. If it was a more modern vehicle then it would just blast him off the bottom, probably vaporized. Yeah you just had to enjoy electrofusion generators.

The truck drove on, bumping along the long since decrepit road, and calling it a road was being generous. The thing was hardly derivable, barely able to be called a path, and the Golem got the brunt of it all, feeling other rocks jab into it; at one point the truck drove at an angle that sheared off its entire back layer. It whimpered in pain and hoped against all hope that the drive wouldn't last much longer. The poor Golem had tried to memorize the route from the fallen building but gave up after the first couple of painful bumps. It was hard to concentrate on map making when you were busy trying not to scream and hanging onto the bottom of an exhaust spewing vehicle.

Finally they stopped and the Golem sighed in relief as it felt the others disembark. It stayed there for a moment, waiting until it was absolutely certain that all of them had gone before tentatively releasing its hold on  the truck. Wobbling unsteadily on its legs it peeked around the wheel of the truck and took in its surroundings.

The camp was...not what it had expected, it wasn't like the others it had come across on its...travels. Though perhaps Crusades would be a more appropriate term. It was sophisticated, it had technology, a thin veil encompassed the entire area, one that apparently purified the air considering the fact no one was wearing a mask and it knew none of these people were Pantheoneon. It seemed like the camp was stable, it wasn't a group of crudely made huts ready to be taken down at any moment, they had set up a steady life here. The sun shone brightly, apparently that field around the camp dispelled the clouds that encompassed the rest of the world, and people were busy at work, some growing crops from seeds they must have saved from the apocalypse, others building homes out a strange glossy white material the Golem had never seen before.

It screamed order. It screamed civilization, stability. It screamed sterile.

Everything just seemed so...clean. It was a Utopia in otherwise what would've been hell.

The Golem stared in awe, almost forgetting it was in fact hiding, quickly catching itself before it stepped further out of the shadows. 

The group he had hitched a ride with stood waiting in what could probably be the equivalent to a town square, they all seemed nervous, the burly colored man holding the injured boy and the mouse-haired girl especially. They were the outsiders and probably hadn't seen anything like this in a very long time. They were out of their element. 

"Ah! There you all are," A tall man with startling white hair and tinted sunglasses said with a broad and welcoming smile, approaching the group quickly. He wore a long white lab coat, and his face seemed young yet at the same time much, much older than all of them combined, it was a strange combination to say the least. He gave off an aura that radiated power, fair yet just, utterly charming. The Golem could see how the strange man could get others to follow him, his personality was intoxicating. "I was worried we lost another one of our own after you all didn't return yesterday, that and the storm..." The man lost his smile for a moment, a deeper darkness flickering over his face, one that suddenly made him seem dangerous. Very much so. But it quickly passed and the smile was back in place.

The man turned to the two newcomers and held out a hand. "Hello I don't think we've  met, I'm Julius, leader of this tiny little wonderland, or ah, I suppose most call it Faction now a'days hmm? In any case, I thank you both for getting my boys back here safely."

The girl smiled back and shook the hand extended to her. "It wasn't problem, though we didn't do much, Nicoli did more than us, we only found them this morning."

Julius stiffened for a moment, a minute thing that would go un noticed by most but not by the carefully trained eye of a golem. "Nicoli you say?"

"Yes? Is...that a problem?"

"No...just, where is he?" Julius asked recovering quickly, taming the sudden wild energy that seemed to flow from him.

"Still in' da truck," The burly man said gesturing towards the vehicle, Julius turned his attention to it and the Golem quickly backed up, hiding behind the wheel. "He passed out aftah' he got rid of da' Animate. He did somethin' real strange to 'em. I ain't never seen anythin' like it."

The Golem poked his head back around the wheel in time to see Julius look away. "I see..." He looked thoughtful and snapped his fingers, getting the attention of two blond boys standing a little ways off. It hadn't noticed them standing there before, were they like guards? They certainly seemed tough enough and angry enough for the job. One of them even had a nasty looking scar running down one side of his face. Perfect for the role. "Augustus, Akkie, get the boy from the truck." The two men nodded, the one with the scar scowling slightly, and pushed themselves from the wall they had been leaning on. Julius turned his attention back to the truck and this time the Golem wasn't fast enough. Julius saw it, it knew he did by the small smile that crept on his lips, one that almost seemed to be anticipating something. But what?

Something flashed minutely behind the mans glasses a quick and bright blue, the Golems knees wobbled slightly in fear. Suddenly this man seemed more like a snake than anything else. It could see the cunning behind those glasses, and terror like a physical force washed through its body. Julius looked away and the Golem collapsed in shock, shaking violently, before getting up and running in the opposite direction.

"Now then, perhaps we should continue the rest of this conversation inside? There I can properly analyze the state of both the boys."

The Golem continued to run, it wanted to get away.

And it had to make it back to the Pantheon.

It had a lot to tell them.

Reviews

[Writer #00]

Fifth paragraph, last line: Panthoneon-->Pantheon, right?

The Golem sounds like Nicoli--gasp--mayeb Nico was a golem in his past life! Julius is creepy and suspicious and "so how-have-people-not--noticed his expressions."

Clarification please:
1) Who're the African-American and Latino?
2)How big is the golem?

Well constructed chapter.

[Tsukin Archangel]

Latino errr kinda figured that one was obvious lol Dante Victor is the African American lol

[Writer #00]

I thought so...I remembered Dale was Latino after I posted that.........

[Tsukin Archangel]

yeah or black or something not hite lol

[Writer #00]

...
hite?

[Tsukin Archangel]

whoops white typo

[Writer #00]

makes more sense

[Tsukin Archangel]

lol yep