Calling of the Monsters

Sam stared at the woman for a moment, trying to shake off the memories from his own past. He jumped slightly when he heard Charon's voice, turning to face him. He shrugged slightly. "Not too sure, sir. Got carried here by a great big tree sorta thing." He turned back to the scene. "Is this... Your past?"

Charon was quiet for a time as he didn't know what to make of this himself. "It was, that was a long time ago though" Charon said quietly as he watched his younger self just enjoy the company of his mother. With how Charon lived his life, no one would have really guessed that he was just a part of some suburban community like so many other kids were in Ruby City. It seemed too peaceful for someone like Charon to become the way he was.

"It wasn't meant to be though" Charon admitted quietly as he motioned to the spot next to him. "Take a seat, you deserve to know what happened here...ask anything you want"

Sam sat on the stairs next to his superior, watching the scene before them. He was silent for a good minute, thinking of what to say, what to ask. "What happened to her?" He finally asked. "A while ago, you said she might still be alive... But what happened that caused the two of you to end up separated?"

Charon watched as mother and son played together and laughed together. Charon waved his hand and the scene seemed to just speed up a great deal. IT grew dark, and a man entered the home. He was moving sluggishly, Sam had lived in the East District long enough to know when someone was drunk. "He happened" Charon said quietly. The man proceeded to scream at both mother and son, leading Neal to cry and the woman to try and stand up for herself. She was struck again and again by the man, even to the point of drawing blood.

The scene faded away and turning in to morning. Neal walked down the stairs, calling for his mother's name. There was no answer though as the boy kept looking around. Eventually he went outside and saw that one of the cars was missing, and all of his mother's jackets and shoes were gone.

"My father wasn't the kindest of men" Charon spoke as he and Sam watched the scene together. "Having been laid off of work he couldn't find anything else. He always insisted that powered individuals took away his job. As a normal man, what could he really offer anyone that a super couldn't?" Charon questioned as he watched his younger self crying over a picture of his mom.

"She left in the middle of the night. I don't know what she was thinking or where she went...all I know was that she didn't take me with her"

It felt like a rock sank in the pit of Sam's gut. She left in the middle of the night... Abandoning him? Sam shook his head. That was... Awful. Heartless. He turned to Charon, and was about to offer some sort of condolences, but didn't know what to say. Either way, nothing he could say would fix anything on any level. Instead, he turned back to the scene. "I'm willing to bet that your father wasn't too happy about what she did..." He said. Sam also was willing to bet that without Charon's mother around, there was no one else for his father to attack apart from Charon himself, and there was now no one to protect the child.

Charon said nothing before waving his hand. The scene changed again as the house grew dark. The young boy was laying on the ground as the father kicked him senselessly. The boy could do nothing to fight back, he only moved his arms in the way to try and protect himself. It was a futile effort, but the boy had to do something. Charon said nothing as the rest of the scene unfolded.

Sam watched as the husband walked over and grabbed a poker from the fireplace. He swung once, twice, three times in total as the blade ripped and tore at the boy's flesh. Sam now watched with his own eyes the incident that left Charon's face as damaged as it was. The young boy just laid there crying, unable to handle the pain his father put him through.

Sam stared at the scene unfolding before him. He had seen similar experiences in his time on the streets, but never seen such cruel acts carried out on a child. Turned away, unable to stomach what he was seeing. "How long?" He asked after the sounds of the beating stopped. "How long did this go on? A week? A month? When did you escape?" He turned back to the scene, seeing the man towering over young Charon. "And did he get what he deserved?" His voice shook slightly with rage when he asked that.

"Longer than it should have" was all that Charon was able to say. "I did what I had to do" Charon added as a new scene unfolded before them. The father was in the middle of his chair, passed out drunk as a whole bottle of scotch was in his hand. Young Neal stood before him, face bandaged as the father did it himself in order to not explain himself to the police. The boy picked up the same poker the father had used to bash his head in. With one swift motion, the boy rammed it through the man's heart. "I torched the place and left shortly after...making my way to the East District on accident. I didn't know kind of a world was there, but I just had to get away"

Charon stood up and put his hands in his pockets. "Come on, I don't want to be here anymore" he said as he walked forward. As he went for the door he passed by the chair where his father's corpse lay. The man's hand shot forward and grabbed Charon.

"COWARD! Always have been!" the man shouted as his eyes began to glow red. He picked up Charon with ease and threw him against the nearest wall, causing it to crack from the impact. The man stood up and removed the poker from where it had impaled him. "I'll finish you off now like I should have all those years ago!" he screamed as the house around him began to ignite in a fiery blaze. Charon looked up in shock, Sam would be able to tell that Charon wasn't doing this...not intentionally at least.

Instinctively, Sam rushed forward and wrapped his arm's around the man's throat and top of his head in a choke hold and kicked the soft spot on the back of his knee, attempting to bring him down. Sam wasn't sure what the hell was going on here, and he wasn't even sure if his incredible strength would be able to hold him in place, but he put everything he could into suppressing this man. "Disarm him!" He called to Charon; regardless of what was happening here, taking a weapon away from someone was always a smart decision.

Charon couldn't do anything though. Sam would recognize the look in Charon's eyes, a look of fear that Charon rarely obtained. Even knowing this was an illusion, confronting the memory of his father's beating seemed to scare him stiff. "He can't help you now" the man said before reaching around and lifting Sam up with a surprise showing of strength and throwing him away. "He can't even help himself...couldn't even save his friend" the image of Charon's father said as he pulled the poker out and ran forward, aiming to bring the metal down on top of Charon's skull.

Sam collided with the wall and hit the floor, but was back on his feet rather quickly. He rushed Charon's father, hoping to tackle him away from Charon and diverting the blow. "Charon, MOVE YOUR ASS. Are we running or fighting? Either way, sitting and staring AIN'T GONNA FIX THIS!" He shouted; he was well aware of Charon's terror, and well aware this was a repeat of a traumatic experience for Charon, but Sam also knew that Charon was not the kind to be pushed around by a subordinate. He remembered how riled up Charon got about being called "pretty boy" back in the ring when he was training him. Sam wasn't about to drag Charon's looks into this again, especially after what had caused them, but he had to do something to snap Charon out of his terror. "C'mon, SCARE ME!" He screamed, trying to hold Charon's father down.

Sam continued to hold Charon's father down, the two of them struggling to fight and continue to gain dominance over one another. Charon just sat there though, unable to move. After staring at his father for a time, Charon made a fist and clenched it. As he did this, Sam would see the tree monster forming behind Charon as the man rose, the monster mimicking his actions. "I'm not afraid of you anymore" Charon said quickly before firing his hand forward. Sam wouldn't see it, but a black skull suddenly fired from Charon's hand and collided with his father, knocking him out a nearby window and out in to the open field.

Charon ran over and offered Sam a hand. "Come on...this isn't over, but it's about time I end this once and for all" Charon said before moving and hopping out the window. As Sam followed they would see Charon's father start to change.

His skin turned dark as his muscled grew, armor starting to form over him and the poker turned in to a cruel and twisted blade. "You'll always be afraid of me boy" the man said as he readied his blade. The real fight began now.

Sam stared out the window. What sort of nightmare bullshit was this? He shook his head, needing to focus on the task at hand. He hurdled over the windowsill, following Charon outside. He wasn't even surprised at the sight of Charon's father transforming; between the wolves, the tree monsters, and seeing time change around them, Sam had just sort of accepted the bizarreness of the situation. He moved himself next to Charon, holding his forearm up, ready to block an attack from the sword to draw blood, to tap into his source of power. "I'm following your lead, boss." He said, circling around the twisted knight, ready to flank.

"Hold him down and kill him, I don't have a much better thought out plan than that" Charon admitted as he watched the nightmare version of his father. Charon had his own ghosts to deal with, and the murder of his own father was one of them. In truth it haunted Charon to know that he had killed one of his family members. But as he grew older and understood what really happened more, he knew that he had done the right thing. The law might not have seen it that way, but Charon didn't give a damn about any of that.

Charon's eye focused on his father before removing his mask. "Look at what you made me father. This is what I am now!" Charon yelled. The man flinched back as Charon's power began to affect him, but it didn't seem to slow him down for long as he rushed forward, swinging his blade to try and cut at the two of them. Charon rolled to the side before drawing his knife, knowing he might need it to defend himself.

Sam stood his ground and held up his arm, the blade cutting into his forearm. He managed to stop the blade with his blood before it cut bone, but it had done significantly more damage than he anticipated. He cried out in pain, but immediately pushed his blood around the blade and hardened it, attempting to keep the blade in place so Charon could move in. He moved forward and grabbed the hilt of the sword, pulling on it, forcing the nightmare to focus on Sam. "Sorry, buddy." He sneered. "Supers took your jobs. Took your kid. Now the two of us are here to take what's left."

The man growled as his blade seemed to stop just in time to stop him from severing Sam's hand. He pushed more of his weight down. In the mind Sam's strength only went so far, this being the only reason that Sam was having such a hard time in this fight. Charon's mental nightmare of his father was far stronger than what he had actually been.

Charon moved to Sam's aid, quickly sprinting in to a slide where he embedded his knife in to his father's leg. The nightmare screamed but ultimately slammed his foot on Charon's torso. Charon coughed up some blood as he felt pressure on his ribs. The nightmare continued to push down on Charon, the boy trying to hold the weight off but only able to do so much.

The father turned back to Sam as he began to push his blade towards Sam once again. "And what of you Crimson Scar? You truly believe that you're capable of stopping loss? Look at all that you've lost...you and I aren't so different"

Sam forced a great deal of blood out of his wound until he had a sword of his own; he broke it off of his stream and readied it in his own hand. "Deeds are what make people different." He replied with his trademark wolf grin. "Not circumstances. We've both lost a helluva lot, sure. The difference is I actually took care of the bastards who took it all from me while you smacked around a helpless woman and child and tried drowning your problems in a bottle." He ran forward, swiping a wide left slash at the man; he was by no mean's skilled with a sword, but it would force the man's blade to be parrying him, and allowing Sam to knee-stamp him and free Charon from beneath his father's weight.

The man yelled as he felt the knee crash in to him. IT moved him back, but his armor seemed too thick to really receive any damage from it. Charon pushed himself to his feet as his father swung his sword, readying himself for his next attack. Charon wobbled as the pressure on his chest remained from his father's weight. This nightmare was a strong one, created from Charon's subconscious to challenge him.

"Do you think you can pierce his armor, if I get you an opening?" Charon asked.

Sam turned the sword he had been using back into liquid, having it drench his arm and giving him a large claw instead; he was incredibly awkward with a melee weapon and decided it was best to stay in his element. "Pierce it? Not sure. But I can sure as hell rip a chunk of it off if I can get a hold on him." He answered Charon. He moved to the right, circling around; this illusion wanted Charon, so he was going to take advantage of not being its primary target and always be on a flank. As soon as Charon made an opening, Sam was going to be ready to rush in.

"A chunk is a good start that I will take" Charon remarked as he readied his knife. He swung the blade around for a few moments, trying to decide what would work best here. The more Charon looked at the monster that was his father, the more he remembered about him. His father had been cruel and quiet, but he was no real monster. He didn't have the stomach to become a man like Charon had become. The anger, the cruelty, the struggle...all of these things had formed Charon in to the creature he was now.

Without hesitating, Charon suddenly charged forward. Charon screamed as he moved and slashed at his father. For a moment, Sam would see a shadow of the tree monster behind Charon, smashing its own large arm in to the father's armor. The man went flying back, landing on his back as Charon's knife seemed to do more damage than it should have.

"Finish him!" Charon and the monster shouted in unison.

Sam followed up Charon's attack as soon as his father went flying back. Sam leaped on top of the man and ripping off a large portion of the armor on his chest, followed by plunging the claw into his exposed chest. He wasn't sure how much damage it would do in this weird nightmare land, but surely a large claw piercing flesh, bone, and organs would at least slow this thing down if not outright kill it.

Sam was right, even in a nightmare realm it seemed like a claw of his power could do some damage. The nightmare let out a wicked cry before collapsing back, turning in to ash and slowly vanishing around Sam.

Charon stood by, watching as his father once again burned in the flames as he remembered. The monster standing behind Charon leaned down to look at the boy. "You know how what you must do?" he asked, to which Charon only nodded. "Then my part is done" he said.

---

Both Charon and Sam would wake up in the room. By the time Sam looked over to Charon, he'd see that his boss was sitting up in bed and just looking down at his hands. "I've felt powerless for a very long time" he said in Sam's direction though still didn't look at his second. "I couldn't protect my mom from my dad...she left me, and now my men....Mute, they're all being killed" Charon said quietly.

"Sam, I'm sorry, but I can't be like Father was. It's just not who I am. I've always said that Neal died when he killed his father, and I think I believed it to a point...but I think it's finally time to bury that part of me behind. Charon is who I am now, and I'm very good at what I do" Charon said before reaching up to rub his eyes. Sam didn't need to see it directly to know that tears were coming down Charon's eyes.

"Had I done what needed to be done, perhaps Mute would still be alive. HE was my best friend, and now he's gone....how do I forgive myself for that?"

Sam let out a sigh and put a hand on his leader's shoulder. "You don't need to be like Father. You're kicking enough ass on these streets as it is. And you didn't get Mute killed. That was Simon who ordered that. You don't need to forgive yourself for it. You just need to avenge him. And we do that by winning this god damn war."

Sam's words rang true to Charon. He had only gotten this far by being himself and winning all his battles in the way he best could....and that was by being as cruel and ruthless as he could possibly be. Simon crossed a line when he killed Mute, and it was now up to Charon to cross that line back.

Charon pushed himself off of the bed and walked over to this desk where he wrote a few lines on a notecard. He looked it over for a moment before turning around and walking over to Sam. He held it out and allowed Sam to look it over. It was an address to an area outside of the East District.

"I need you to go there, kill anyone protecting the house and take the women that lives there" Charon began before looking up to Sam. "This is where Simon's wife lives. I want you to bring her to me undamaged, do you understand?" he asked, knowing that Sam usually disagreed to resorting to this sort of a tactic.

Sam's stomach dropped slightly as Charon explained what he wanted of Sam; however, he wasn't about to say no to his leader. He stood up, wincing as he realized his arm was still in a sling, and nodded. "Yes, sir, I understand." He formally stated; he wasn't about to argue, but he wanted to make it plain he disapproved of the plan. "I'm in no state to get her myself, in full honesty, but I can send Janitor and Orlando. You'll have her in three days, tops."
Sam opened the door and left the building, not so much as giving Mason a glance as he left to talk to his peers about their job.