Michael
With the priest's departure, the immortal had left as silently as he'd arrived, stopping only to collect any guns and unused ammo from the corpses that now littered the battlefield. Rigging up bag of sorts with the clothes of the fallen, Michael lugged all the weaponry and ammunition away, stopping some distance away to sort out the menagerie of guns and bullets.
A lot of reloads for the machine pistol, the immortal noted, offhandedly glancing at the Mac-10 he'd ripped from a ganger's hands.
Not as many for the assault rifle, unfortunately, he continued, noting the two weapons, And only some of the rounds match one of them, while the others match the other one.
With all the time given to him by looking over the loot, Michael found himself contemplating what had just happened. He should've grown used to this, grown numb. The deaths he'd witnessed during the course of his eternity were without number, a simple fact, rather than something to be mourned. He'd see far less ignoble deaths than that, knew all too well that there were worse ways to die...but that man...he died for something. In the pursuit of his own twisted sense of justice, revenge, whatever it was, the immortal didn't care. All that matter was that he'd had something to die for, an idea that was almost...foreign, to him.
So, when did I lose it? Aside from being unaging, I'm just as vulnerable as the next guy. So when did I lose...
It was at this moment that it occurred to Michael once more that the reason that the past few millennia had seemingly blurred by him was because there was nothing really anchoring him in the moment. That he'd never really cared whether he lived or died during that time, lacking a cause to fight and die for. Just the pursuit of battle for its own sake.
When did I become so...hollow?
It was that fundamental spark that could be said to be what distinguished those who truly lived from those who simply survived. A cause to call one's own. Whether is was the hedonist's endless pursuit of pleasure, the sadist's endless pursuit of torment, the holy man's endless pursuit of salvation, for himself and others, they all had something that they had set themselves on doing and a reason to keep doing it. Michael had faded to simply living for the fight itself, nothing more. Seeking to fill the emptiness in his own soul with those moments in mortal combat when the opponents' minds, their hearts, their very souls would meld together as their clash would transcend the movements of their bodies and...
Michael shook his head, clearing his mind of the absent train of thought. He realized that he hadn't only lost in letting his sense of purpose fade. Having given up any sort of cause, he'd instead gained an uncanny ability to survive, to go from one day to the next without truly registering the time inbetween. Something lost, something gained, as always. Of course, there is no rule governing that the exchange must be equal.
Ugh. Another death, another near-death experience, why am I letting it get to me like this?
With that in mind, the immortal strode off, not sure of where he was heading until the signs of a fight registered to his honed senses...
Blood dripped from the staff, the immortal frowning at the crimson liquid as dripped from the corrupted, giving the similar splotches painting the walls with a similarly annoyed look as he sighed, looking around at the fallen bodies, most of whom had bet against him in favor of the admittedly impressive looking hulk of a...man? The immortal wasn't entirely sure if the being that now lay in a bloody heap was human, though they certainly hadn't looked like it before he'd gotten into the figurative ring. The maddening whispers of destruction slipped into his ears even now, his grip loosening on the staff.
...Well this got out of hand.
What had started as a simple match with a prizefighter had somehow devolved into this massive brawl, with no one able to call in police partially out of some twisted self-interest but mostly due to the fact that the rules of this arena mandated that the spectators would have to leave their phones outside. Just as suddenly as the immortal's out-of-body experience had started, it quickly ended, leaving him standing amongst the still-warm bodies. Looking around with no small amount of distaste at the pointless carnage around him, the immortal went about the task of collecting whatever would prove to be of material worth.
Heh, fitting for a mere survivor to be little more than a scavenger.
It didn't take long to find a fence to sell the items off to, one that thankfully paid in cash. Looking at the useless paper, the immortal briefly considered simply chucking it into a river. He didn't actually need to eat or sleep, so this was more or less useless. Deciding on this course of action, the immortal trudged outside, having taken a moment to clean off whatever blood he could (Thank the Pantheon for red tunics) when, all of a sudden, the sky itself turned white despite it having been the darkest night not too long before.
Frowning, the immortal forgot his plans regarding the money for a moment in favor of the strange light. Oddly enough, some of the people in the street looked upon the light with seeming...dread? Pain? The immortal wasn't sure, and even more confusing was that those few were the only ones who looked upon the light like that. The others around them seemed to be fine, their eyes filled with something comparable to awe or wonder.
...A cause to fight for, eh? Possibly? ...wow, I'm getting desperate now, aren't I?
Curious, Michael approached one of the people who seemed adverse affected by the light.
Upon finding shelter from the light, it seemed fairly clear now what the light was doing. The one thing the people who'd bee affected had in common was that none of them were entirely human. Oddly enough, the light hadn't affected him at all.
So...some kind of light that makes these non-humans skittish. Is it just the specific ones I encountered or all of them? It seems to be coming from those suns...
The immortal considered it for a while longer before a smile came to his face.
So, these people, at the least, want this light gone, for decent reasons, granted. For someone to be able to create this kind of light, chances are they'll be strong. So...a reason to fight, and someone strong to fight, all in one, eh? Strange, I don't feel like my time's going to last much longer after all, but for the first time in forever...
Something lost, something gained, once again. The immortal considered his situation for a moment, suddenly thankful he'd recently acquired a fair bit of money.
This might be fairly expensive, after all, in more ways than one. Ah who am I kidding, this is definitely going to be expensive. Hell, I might actually die here.
After a moment's consideration, the immortal found that he actually didn't mind that possibility.
