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alexthebordercollie · 25 days ago

Text

Showmanship

contains drug use, contains alcohol, contains threats of violence, contains torture, contains execution, contains questionable touching ⸸ = violence

˗ˏˋ▽△𓆩⌣𓆪△▽ˎˊ˗

𓊈 2̵͎͕́0̴̩̓́̈̈́͑|̸̛̱̀͜1̸͈̹̥̦̓2̸͇̼̯̮̇͆̚ͅ 𓊉

They had an impressive run this faction, though no points for creativity. The Anti-Cipher Coalition. Ford supposed all the fun names had been taken already. That said, the way they had managed to rally together rebels from all over the galaxy was commendable. Their warding magic was tight, though not impenetrable. That much was obvious, considering Ford had already found his workaround and infiltrated their base. Their defenses were down, and they didn't even know it yet. One sloppy mistake would be the last these people ever made. It was time to stamp out yet another rebellion before they could pose a threat. Ford couldn't blame these people, of course. Bill was a shit emperor. That didn't matter. This dimension was on the brink of collapse, and Bill was load-bearing. Ford had to protect his husband at all costs, even if it made him the villain. Oh well, enough stalling. Ford took a long swig of his jellybean vodka to chase down the nose candy and prepared to put on a show.

Click.

"Hello, everyone!" Ford dropped the bottle into the bottomless pocket of his coat and picked up the mic. His voice echoed warmly over the intercom through every inch of the facility. "This is your Royal Consort Supreme speaking, The Right Hand of God." He paced the announcement room and twirled the microphone cable around his finger as he swayed to the soothing sound of his own voice. Panicked fists and boots banged on the door Ford had reinforced, to no avail. His image was projected currently over every digital screen in the building. Ford made sure to give the people his good side. "I'm here on behalf of his Imperial Pain in the Ass to deliver a message," he announced. "All personnel are to report to the auditorium in the next 60 seconds. Those who fail to do so will be vaporized." With a snap of his fingers, a deadly wave of stellar heat formed a bubble around the compound that began to shrink. Ford pretended to check a non-existent watch on his wrist. "One, two, three... oh wait." He laughed. "I forgot, the clocks don't work. My bad." Ford looked down at the crowd he'd soon be face to face with. He could see the security feed for the whole facility on a wall of monitors opposite the window. He smiled as he watched his dissonate subjects scurry like ants across the screens. The banging on the door had stopped. "I hope for your sake I'm good at counting."

Ford heard the early screams of the first couple of unwitting stragglers to be caught by his spell being vaporized. They didn't scream for long. The way the sound cut off was something akin to a bug zapper.

Showtime.

˗ˏˋ▽△𓆩👁𓆪△▽ˎˊ˗ ⸸

Ford chucked the mic and swirled on his heels to face the window overlooking the auditorium below. He lazily drew lines in the air. His gesturing hand sliced through the seams of the wall. The dense material curled down for him like the top of a sardine can. The sound of screeching metal nearly drowned out the frantic din of folks rushing into the open space below.

A couple of rebels had come prepared, armed with all manner of monster-hunting gear. Some of it was pretty advanced stuff, Ford would give them that. The first hit was a fireball of all things.

"Aw, baby's first spell," Ford coed as he tanked it without a scratch. Walking through the flames, he trotted down the platform he'd created for himself to the center stage.

More shouting, bullshit heroic speeches, Ford had heard them all.

A magic disabling pulse from a two-man cannon was a bit more impressive, AOE, hard to dodge. It washed over him like faint purple plasma. The magitech attack was enough to make Ford's power flicker. He felt it in his chest, that sharp sting. His connection was severed temporarily, though not completely. Not so much that he couldn't dodge the following blast attack. Tuck and roll, take that one down with a punch to the throat, another with a leg sweep.

The siblings with their pulse cannon made a frantic effort to recharge for another shot as the two rings on Ford's right hand sparked back to life. He could feel the magic burn through his blood as his hand lit up with his muse's divine power. That beloved boon made his heart race faster than any drug.

The siblings were fast, not faster than him. Two snapped necks, and the power was back on. Ford disintegrated the cannon with a snap of his fingers, and with it, every other weapon in the room.

˗ˏˋ▽△𓆩⌣𓆪△▽ˎˊ˗ ⸸

A few people shrieked. The braver ones fell back into phalanx formation around the weak and tried to melt him with their moralizing glares.

Ford pulled his vodka back out of his coat pocket and took another swig. He tossed the bottle up in the air and watched it duplicate. He caught both and tossed them up and watched them split again, lazily juggling them to his own amusement while he waited on his congregation. He playfully whistled a little tune in time with his juggling and pulled one bottle aside with a third arm that split from his ribs to take another swig. He savored the heat that flushed in his chest and the splash of sickly sweet.

He looked to be the only person amused.

"Tough crowd," Ford chuckled. More people were filing in as his spell corralled them. Ford could see through the walls. A few strangers were trying to teleport people out. They attempted different methods to get around Ford's bubble. Zodiacs, he assumed. Every rebel group had a set.

Ford clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "I swear people never listen." He tossed his bottles up and let them all merge back into one object as he absorbed the extra arm. He caught the bottle when it fell and sauntered up onto the auditorium stage. He snapped his fingers and summoned the zodiacs and their assisting comrades directly into the auditorium, lining the zodiacs up on stage behind him, their feet now swallowed up by the floor, arms bound, pinning them all in place. "You give people simple instructions, and they just can't resist letting you down," Ford lamented to his prisoners. He paced down the line, taking in each of their faces. He knew each and every zodiac, knew their types. They all looked the fucking same. "I'm not an unreasonable man, people. I don't ask for much."

One Zodiac at the end of the line reeled back as Ford approached. A former acolyte...

This one had Ford's touch on their face. An inky black handprint stained their skin.

Two guesses which one of them was the Six-Fingered Hand.

Ford reached out to cup the boy's face in six fingers, where he had apparently done so once before. He tried to remember who this one was, when and why they had come to him.

"You know all about that, though. Don't you, boy?" Ford leaned in to read the fire in the boy's eyes. He was young when he accepted his God's mark. A lonely child who had lost everything. Ford rubbed his thumb affectionately over the boy's cheekbone. It wasn't the first time someone had spit in Ford's face. It made him grateful for his glasses. "I'm not your boy!" the now young man hissed.

"Adrian, right?" Ford recalled as he stepped back and put the vodka away to clean his glasses on his shirt.

Adrian didn't reply. That was fine. Ford probably wouldn't have either. He put his glasses back on and turned to face the crowd. "All right, which one of you is in charge around here?"

No answers.

Ford combed over the sea of faces and skimmed their minds. It was clear they had all been trained to guard their thoughts. The high-ranking members wore devices to protect themselves from psychics. Ford looked over the warded members and pointed with a finger.

"Eeny, meeny, miney- You." He singled out the leader. He knew her by the fire in her eyes and the main character scar across her face. She was a grizzled older woman in a trench coat. It wasn't hard to figure out.

One of Ford's hands burst up from the ground below her and snatched her up. It jerked her up to the center stage to hold her face-to-face with the god these people sought to defy.

"Clarrise, I'm guessing? Don't tell me-" Ford laughed and waved a hand at her. He closed his eye and held two fingers to his temple as he guessed. "They call you Cleaver or Glaive, some kind of bullshit hipster weapon. The last person to use your birth name was your mother, right before she sacrificed herself to save you. You were..." He looked up again and squinted at her. "Seven, maybe ten... am I in the right ballpark?"

The contorted rage on this woman's face confirmed he did indeed have her pegged.

She spat in his face. "Go fuck yourself, demon whore!"

"Ok, so we're doing this again." Ford stepped back to clean his glasses, again. Like he said, no points for originality with these people.

Ford paced the stage as he addressed the crowd. "Alright, now that I've got you all here, let's talk." Ford tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels. "You all know why I'm here. I know what you're planning, and I know it won't work. I think deep down you all know it too." Ford watched the crowd for the tell-tale signs of the easily swayed. "Now, I could have just wiped this place off the map with everyone inside, but I didn't, why?" Ford cupped a hand to his ear and waited for an answer from the crowd.

His eye flashed with blue fire when he didn't get one. "I didn't because...?"

Confused murmurs came back from the crowd before their leader barked at him.

"Because the Ciphers are a pair of showboating sadists!" Clarissa, or Cleaver or Glaive or whatever she called herself, snapped at him. She struggled in vain against the hand that held her. ⸸

Ford's hand tightened its grip till everyone in attendance could hear the crack of her ribs. She cried out and choked on the breath that fled her lungs, winded from the pain. ⸸

"Wrong answer. Try again."

Ford looked back out at the crowd when he heard a meek voice attempt to speak up. She was barely more than a child, sixteen, maybe seventeen.

Ford turned to her and offered a hand in her direction. "Excuse me, miss, can you say that again?"

The girl was tucked behind some of the front liners who had tried to fight back. Her comrades looked at her, mortified as she mumbled too softly to be heard by most. Ford could hear her, though.

He snapped his fingers and summoned up a cold stone throne to sit on. He teleported the shy girl to his lap and perched her on his knee like a demented mall Santa.

"Say it one more time." He instructed. He brought his bottle back out for another swig. "Louder, for the folks in the cheap seats."

Ford's magic amplified her voice when she spoke.

"T-To... to g-give us, a ch-chance-" she stammered out at a snail's pace.

"Uhg, come on, I have a meeting to get to, I don't have all day," Ford groaned after downing more alcohol.

"To Surrender Sir!" The girl barked obediently. Ford offered her a warm smile and patted her back. The girl flinched under his touch but made no attempt to flee. "Good girl. Can I get your name, sweetheart?"

"M-Molly." Molly was shaking, on the verge of tears.

"Would you like to leave?" Ford rubbed reassuring little circles into her lower back. He leaned down to her and spoke softly like one would address a child.

Tears spilled over. Ford could smell the fear rolling off her, hear the whirring, sparking gears in her mind as she struggled to process if he was being sincere.

"I... I d-don't..." Her words were so quiet and meek.

"Speak up."

"I-"

"Louder. I want everyone to hear you." Ford replaced his vodka with a microphone he held to the girl's lips as she sobbed.

"I don't want to die!" Molly wailed, screaming hysterically into the mic for everyone to hear. She crumpled into a soggy mess of snot and tears, collapsing against Ford's chest.

"Good girl." Ford combed his fingers through her tight curls. "You did so well," he whispered.

Ford snapped his fingers, and an opening appeared in the deadly force field that was confining them all to this room.

All eyes were locked on that opening. An out, a chance at freedom, at survival.

Ford nudged Molly and led her gaze to the exit. "Go on then. You can go."

Molly stared at it wide-eyed, chest heaving, frozen in place.

"Unless you'd rather stay here with me," Ford teased. "You've been lovely company, but I don't think you want to stick around for the rest of the show."

Molly looked up at Ford for a few seconds before hesitantly slipping from his lap. She took a few steps back, never taking her eyes off him.

Ford smiled and twiddled his fingers farewell to her.

Another step back, then another, when Ford never motioned to stop her. She finally made a run for it, bolting for the exit like her life depended on it. Once she made it through the field, Ford sealed the exit once more. Molly's comrades watched through the semi-transparent wall of magic as the girl booked it down the hall without once looking back.

Some looked disgusted, some betrayed. Ford watched the light in others' eyes die as they watched their opening disappear.

"There, you see what happens when you behave?" Ford returned to his drink and reclined lazily on his throne. He spoke like a father in his comfy chair. "I don't want to have to be the bad guy here. All I need is for you all to give up on these silly little dreams of yours. Quit while you're ahead, kids."

"Go to hell!" The old woman growled. Blood dripped from her lips.

Ford glanced back at her with a raised eyebrow. "Very original sugar plum. Got any more zingers where that one came from?"

"I.. don't care... what you do... to me..." What's-her-face gasped between straining for air. "We'll never stop fighting."

Ford sighed and pulled himself up from his seat. "If I had a dime for every time I heard that-" He walked over. His heels clicked against the stage. Ford stopped shy of the woman's face. "Well, I'd be a much richer man."

"You disgust me."

˗ˏˋ▽△𓆩👁𓆪△▽ˎˊ˗ ⸸

Ford honestly wished she'd gone out on better last words. What a waste. He liked this woman's fashion sense. Ford placed a hand on her head and lit her on fire. Her screams filled the auditorium.

"See, this is the problem with these hero types. Everyone wants to believe they're the hero. That when it came down to the wire, you'd do the right thing, rise to the occasion, beat the big bad and save the world." He monologed, serenaded by a dying woman's screams as he went down the zodiac line up. He ran his hand over the shooting star, an alien girl with crystal eyes. Her skin peeled away like wallpaper, exposing her musculature to the open air as she wailed in agony and bled out for the crowd.

"But that's just it, you aren't the hero, this isn't your journey." The next zodiac had a glass bubble filled with water materialize around his head, forcing him to drown on his feet.

"There are no chosen ones. You aren't special. The universe doesn't care about you."

Frozen to death, eaten alive by moths, each death was agonizing and slow for the crowd. Some Zodiacs tried to spout trite rebuttals at him about doing what's right, good triumphing over evil. Ford didn't even respond. Just spoke clean past them with his displays of power.

Ford looked back at the crowd as he came to the last boy in the lineup. Adrian, his boy. He placed his hand on his stray acolyte's shoulders. Adrian was doing an admirable job of fighting back the tears as he shook in Ford's hand.

"But you see, I'm not the universe," he reminded his audience. His voice was gentler. "I do care. You're my people after all. I don't want to do this."

The crowd stared in a tense silence.

Ford leaned down to whisper in Adrian's ear. "You could still walk away," he reassured him, his little lost lamb, the little boy he saved so many years ago. "It's not too late. You could put all these ambitions behind you. There's good money to be made out there as a monster hunter. I'm sure you'd be good at it." Ford watched the boy closely as he tried to hide his face behind a curtain of hair. "You could make a life for yourself, find someone, settle down, start a family." The same had been suggested to Ford when he was young and ambitious.

Bitter, spiteful tears spilled over as Adrian finally mustered the courage to look his former god in the eye. "I would rather die than live in Cipher's world."

Ford hadn't taken the deal either.

A man after his own heart.

Ford pressed a hand to the boy's head and granted his wish. He splattered his brain matter across the stage. Unlike the others, this one was quick, painless. It was the least Adrian was owed.

˗ˏˋ▽△𓆩⌣𓆪△▽ˎˊ˗ ⸸

Ford looked back out at the crowd one last time. "Alright then, last call. Raise of hands, who here wants to leave?"

#gravity falls #gravity falls au #hand of god #stanford pines #evil ford au #cw blood #cw mutilation #cw murder #cw drugs #cw alcohol

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