Prime Evil

A/N: I would like to really thank L.L. Crush and ReducedToDays for the wonderful reviews! I didn't even think people really reviewed on this site and so you can imagine how touched and excited I was to see that people actually LIKED it! It was like Christmas for me haha!

So thank you very much you guys. I sincerely appreciate it. :) On to Chapter Two!

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The man had finally swallowed, staring at the smaller creature that insisted on prattling away about some incredible adventures that he had shared with this supposed “Tony”. Extravagant stories of bravery and courage -much like those the man had read in fantasy books- were sputtered out, accented thickly yet much differently than the other humans around.

The man’s eyebrows had furrowed together as he once more swallowed, trying to ascertain what he should do. And so for the first time, he tried to speak, the sound cracked and rough.

“You’re,” He closed his lips together, trying again. “You’re..”

“Montoya, man, don’t you remember?” The shorter man replied, gesturing wildly. “We spent weeks together going after those bastards. How’s Enzo, eh? Still driving the ladies wild, I bet, and not in the good way if you know what I mean!”

His elbow went into the other man’s ribs, however lightly, catching him off guard. He was startled, backing up.

“Man, are you ok? You look tense!”

The man’s tongue went into his cheek, realizing that for all the observing and listening he’d done, he didn’t know the first thing about speaking to another human.

“You,” He began once more, relieved that Montoya had given him the time to sort out his thoughts. “You called me Tony.”

“Yeah man, that’s your name. Or did you forget?” Montoya laughed heartily. “What’d you bump your head or something?”

The man stood thoughtfully for a moment, gazing passed the other and searching his mind for whatever was still in there. Four days, or was it five, was the extent of his memory.

“I don’t know,” He said, a strange feeling of….. contentment coming over him as he realized with ease he had spoken that time.

“What do you remember?”

The man felt himself smile, or what he figured was a smile, as he had only seen others do it and never himself.

“Walking.”

“Walking?” Montoya’s face scrunched, pulling back slightly. “Nothing else?”

The smaller man was searching his face again, dark, thick eyes darting from head to toe. It was then that the man realized that this human was just a little bit different from the others he’d seen. For one, his manner of speaking was quite the opposite of the others, words turned over with his tongue and spoken quickly.

His skin tone was also very different, the short man covered in a tan, almost burnt color. His clothing was odd as well, very colorful and bizarre yet, strangely enough, not irritating to the man.

“You’re dark.” He finally said.

“What?”

“You’re dark.”

An odd face crossed over Montoya’s features, a look that the man could simply not distinguish.

“Yeahhhh,” Montoya drolled out. “I’m Mexican, I’m supposed to be darker.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’? I’m Mexican. I’m not from here.”

The words rehashed themselves through the man’s mind. In his days, he had felt some emotions though truly, he couldn’t usually decipher them. There were feelings he could understand as dread, as caution, as contentment and relief. He’d discovered irritation and dislike, yet this feeling was overwhelming all of them, like the feeling right after he’d eaten that silly human’s pie.

“There are other islands?”

“Are you kidding me? Man, I wouldn’t even be on this tiny rock if it weren’t work related. How hard did you hit your head Tony? Is this some sort of a joke?”

“You’re calling me Tony,” The man finally said, gazing down at the other. “I don’t think I’m him.”

“Nah nah,” Montoya insisted, waving his hand dismissively. “trust me, I’d never forget that ugly mug!”

The man assessed the situation, crossing his arms as he’d seen many of the creatures do, face twisted by deep thought. Tony. It was a good name he’d decided, though on what else he could base it, he hadn’t a clue. But it sounded well enough coming from the “Mexican” and “Tony” decided it was an acceptable title indeed.

He looked upwards, scanning the buildings, the way they seemed to lurch towards the sky and the strange way he knew that despite their height, there were many far larger, recollected only in shadows that seemed to be his memory. Contentment surrounded him in waves, a feeling of accomplishment rising within. His manner of speaking had been entirely instinctual, his body arising to an occasion that his mind simply couldn’t comprehend.

Garbage slowly drifted in white sheets down the roads, the clatter of a thousand footsteps, a thousand humans cluttering up the silence that might have been there. He could feel his mouth move into a frown, a scowl covering his face.

“Take me to your island.” He said, looking dismally at his overcrowded surroundings, listening to the hustle and bustle and awful honking horns in the distance.

“Dude, for real, did you get hurt?” Montoya inquired once more. “It’s like you don’t remember anything. You don’t even know who I am.”

Tony looked down finally, cocking his head to the side.

“I don’t know who I am.”

The other smiled, shrugging his shoulders upwards.

“Easily fixed. There are enough cats around here that know enough about you to fill in any blank. We’ll get in touch with Hero. Way’ I see it, you two have enough history you wouldn’t need to talk to anyone else. You come with me.”

It was in this way that the man, Tony, found his one and only (to his recollection) “friend” as Montoya called it. It didn’t take long for Tony to sense a sort of relief around the man and certainly, not much longer, to take something of a liking to the odd little creature. A comfort he had not felt began to sink in, a strange attachment and need to keep up with the other coming over him.

For as long as he could recall (which was indeed, limited) he had never spoken, nor willfully indulged in the company of humans. In Montoya, he suddenly felt the need to be around another person, walking quickly behind the other and shuffling even faster when the idea of separation even introduced itself.

Through the crowded streets they went, Montoya going on and on about past journeys and Tony struggling to recall even the most mundane meanings behind most of his words. Some things instinctually made perfect sense and not for the first time, Tony began to realize that true understanding was slowly but surely coming into progress. Days before had been spent in a fog of total chaos, confusion his only consort. Now, with each morning, he would awake to more recollection and more in-depth understanding of things that previously had seemed a mystery that could never be solved.

It was an infuriating process, patience needed where there seemed to be none.

The next day he had awaken, having slept deeper than he could remember. He stared at the ceiling, letting waves of understanding crash over him. With sleep came a calmness and rationality that had been missing previously. The last few days had seemed so insane, lost in misunderstanding and confusion.

Now though, he stared upwards, sorting out his dreams and his memory. He still hadn’t a clue if he really was this Tony guy, or whether or not he’d created these terrific memories with Montoya. He didn’t know if he was capable of doing the great “legendary” things that Tony had done or be capable of this immaculate good that Tony demonstrated.

He stared at the tiny specs, clots of white texture above him. Everything here had a purpose. Everything here had a place. Yet did he? It seemed that despite his new found clarity, he was still at odds with the world. Mothers had daughters. Sisters had brothers. Every family had a black sheep. Yet in that, there lay a balance, a necessity for everything.

Everything had its place and purpose in the world except for him. He had no past and the one created for him seemed…. off.

Sorting through what Montoya had told him, Tony was an immense, violent force for the side of good. He slayed the things that went bump in the night, doing so with no intention of having anything returned as a result. He killed the bad and saved the good, a real Saturday morning cartoon hero.

It just didn’t seem to fit him. For one, he didn’t particularly like any of these humans. They seemed awkward and useless to him, irritatingly petty and annoying. They were more obstacles in his way than creatures with real purpose and more than a few times, he’d merely batted them towards one side of the other just to be freed of their constant idiocy. He just couldn’t imagine going out of his way to save them, lest there simply be more to grate at his nerves.

In fact, it had only served to excite him when Montoya had gone on and on about the presence of Demons, of how the humans were blissfully unaware of the world around them. If you were to ask him, it seemed a necessary evil, the over-populated earth choosing its own savior in the form of hideous, flesh hungry beasts.

It had only been when Montoya had presented pictures that Tony began to accept the possibility of his former life. The man that often stared back at him from reflective surfaces was caught in a frame, eyes closed and head thrown backwards in laughter. His arm was wrapped around Montoya, the two polar opposites; Montoya being short and darker complected and the other being this gargantuan, silver haired creature.

“This is another one of you and Hero,” Montoya had slipped another shiny piece of paper towards him. A more sober looking Tony gleamed back at him, the look of somberness more recognizable as his own. Clutched in his arms was a female, one much more attractive to the eyes than most he’d seen.

Her hair was dark and curly, childlike almost as it innocently wrapped around her green eyes.

“You two were an item.” Montoya had told him.

He hadn’t understood what that had meant at the time, only awakening to the full understanding that an “item” meant that they’d mostly likely participated in the act of breeding together. The concept was overwhelming, his eyes looking for anything to take THAT thought away.

He glanced at the room around him, taking in its simplicity. Rays of light beamed in lines over the ceiling, the sun low to signify early morning. Gold flecks of dust crowded around the areas that the sun came in through the shutters, dancing lazily together.

Had he ever felt such peace as he did then, lying uselessly amongst thick covers? Every day had been spent on the journey to avoid humans and feed himself. Today though, he’d awaken with the sun rather than the demands of his body, gazing at the ceiling as if it’d give him answers.

Time, he told himself, time.

Yet even in time, it served only to remind him of his obvious difference from the creatures that surrounded him. He would watch with curiosity as humans interacted with each other, their freedom, their smiles, their simple act of touching each other without the absolute need to do so.

Smiles. Yes, smiles indeed became things of mystery to him, his own rarely ever gracing the world around. He would stare into mirrors, willing it so, willing his own face to match that which beamed at him from pictures. He would stare so hard, wanting the sudden miracle of a full, hearty laugh to instantly appear, his head thrown back with such ease.

But it never could. Instead, a cynical, frightening look would polish itself over his mouth, fake and somehow…..somehow evil.

While this “Tony” seemed to lighten the world around him, the man in the mirror gave off only one definite impression: coldness.

Days wore on and yet memories never joined them. Though interactions became less tedious and simple understanding of terms and phrases became easier, Tony noticed only more and more that he wasn’t like these humans.

For instance, his flesh healed at amazing rates, his eyes turning into saucers the first time he’d cut himself and the skin sewed itself almost instantly.

It had been a weird moment, he decided, an almost depressed reaction to his inability to truly grasp who he was.

He’d stood in the midst of Montoya’s kitchen, the other man out and about trying to get contacts (anyone that might have known enough about Tony to provide information). He’d just stood there for a moment, hands on the kitchen sink as he’d watched that horrible face that stared back from the window. Darkness provided a grand reflection, the thing gazing back appearing monstrous in its perfection.

All humans possessed some mark of adolescence, some characteristic or “flaw” that proved them to be such. Yet he had none of those. Painfully perfect skin was stretched over features that were simply too flawless, as if some fanciful human had painted their idealistic version of a man.

He’d stared into his own eyes, lost in the impression they gave. Was it depth he saw? Or was it emptiness? Was there more? Or was it simply nothing?

On a sick whim he’d grabbed for a butcher’s knife, enraged at this inhuman thing that served as a shell for whatever mystery he truly was. He’d cut into his own palm, watching as the thick blade sliced deep, nearly severing the hand in two.

The blood was red, just like any humans and for but a second, there was the sensation of gratefulness, of perhaps silliness that he imagined it’d be anything but. And then the blood had clotted almost instantaneously, thick and stringy before pulling itself together, the flesh around the gash healing before his eyes.

It was also on such an occasional, however dismal, that he decided to test such abilities. Thankful that Montoya was away, he’d crawled up a building, finding that with ease he could yank the weight of his own body over floor after floor. Like a spider, he’d grabbed onto window panes, pulling himself upwards with the same ease he would walk down the street.

Reaching the top of perhaps one of the tallest buildings within the area, he’d surveyed his surroundings, watching a thousand lights below glitter just as intently as the thousand stars above did.

It was without the least amount of fear that he gazed downwards, finally grasping with certainty that he was something else. No fear buzzed through his system, no prod of mortality as he slowly closed his eyes and drifted downwards. With no sense of inevitable fatality, he’d flown face-first down, his hair being pulled by the wind as he soared through it.

And he had landed, as softly and as surely as one would jump to the bottom step of a staircase, his body never even aching upon impact. Crane after crane he’d crawled, wanting the next one to be different somehow.

Ireland, he’d realized, was an island of cranes, of new growth and new buildings, each one located in dreadful parts of town. Yet he never felt fear of the men around him, never feared the seedy characters that watched with beady eyes as he crossed their section of the world.

He never even cared what they thought, never minded their hushed gasps when he would throw his arms to the side and drift over the edge of the crane, dropping soundlessly from the sky. He didn’t even mind when they’d fear him, in fact, might have oddly indulged in it when they’d run from him, eyes wide and mouths shaped in horrified ‘o’s.

But through it all, Montoya became not only his sanity but his humanity as well. His tie to the outside world, Montoya insisted on taking him amongst the humans, might have even gained some humor out of Tony’s attempts.

For one, his wording of things was, in Montoya’s frank opinion “fucked up and weird”.

Attending ‘pubs’ nearly every night (and certainly to Tony’s disdain at first) he had to be repeatedly scolded for his blunt, yet honest, way of speaking. Mocking laughter had hurt his pride when he’d walked out the front door of a pub without a word, Montoya following and inquiring as to what he was doing.

Cock in hand, Tony had replied that he needed to “let out”, peeing on a random car. Eyes the shape of dinner plates had met his gaze, Montoya at first gawking and then quickly ushering him back inside and introducing him to a “bathroom”, though why it was called a “bathroom” or “restroom” instead of a “pissing room” was entirely beyond the taller man.

“I’ve seen many humans do it,” Tony had spat, staring dismally at the porcelain device that insisted on swirling his urine around repeatedly.

“Pee on cars?” Montoya had laughed again. “Yeah, just drunks.”

An eyebrow raised on Tony’s face without his mind telling it to do so before hand, trying to understand this term “drunks”.

He was much later introduced to the idea when Montoya had damn near force fed him enough beer to douse one hundred cars in piss. He’d rested his head over his arms, the tiny room swirling around him. Oddly enough, despite the way the room tilted to the right and the left when he would stand, peace and tranquility lazily swam through his veins, a slight smile overwhelming his mouth.

Tony analyzed the other’s face, never having realized that although most of these creatures either irritated or disgusted him, Montoya’s features were comely and inviting. High eyebrows over syrupy, honey colored eyes and a smile that seemed permanently attached to his face, Montoya was a pleasant human to look at. Tony also began to comprehend this word “friendship” with which the other referred to him as, noting that it was a positive title.

In alcohol, he felt peace. In soberness, he felt overwhelmed.

The room around seemed even smaller, low ceilings and comfortable sofas seeming to mold together, squashed down by many humans delving into their beers and into meaningless conversations he didn’t understand nor wish to. The door would occasionally open and close, some leaving, some going.

It was in this tranquility that Tony decided to voice a question that had perplexed him for many days.

“How do you know I’m him?”

“Huh?”

Tony closed his eyes, an eerie sensation of what might be considered fear attempting to stifle his drive.

“How do you know I’m Tony?”

Montoya had looked at him with confusion, understanding quickly following.

“You still don’t think you’re him.”

Tony gazed around, swallowing hard as he gazed at these humans, trying with all his might to appreciate them the way he must have at some point before losing his memory.

“I don’t think …..” He paused. “I think if I was once him, that man is gone now.”

Silence only served to vex him more, his face over his knuckles as he, for the thousandth time, prayed for even a single memory to surface. Yet he was diving through an abyss of emptiness, searching for even a bottom and finding that there was just nothing there.

“Why do you think that way? You look just like him. You’re strong just like him. He was a great man, IS a great man.”

“I am not a great man.” Tony said sharply, knowing that his eyes had hardened, knowing that it could possibly frighten Montoya or any of the other humans that glanced his way. He knew without even needing a mirror that his pupils had shrunken, glassy white irises unnatural in a porcelain carved face.

He swallowed once more, closing his eyes and willing himself to calm, to remain rational.

“I see these humans,” He began softly, eyes still closed. “and I hate them. I hate their sight, I hate their smell, I hate the way they stare at me. I look at children and I feel nothing more than sickness, detesting the fact that in a few short years, they’ll be just as insolent as the ones around them.

“I hate mothers, I hate daughters, I hate brothers and I hate fathers. I watch them in parks, I watch them in stores, I watch them doing nothing at all and it makes me want to vomit. I want nothing more than for your loathed “Demons” to surface and kill them all and I want nothing so much as to watch them do it.”

He opened his eyes, ignoring the priceless stare of his consort, ignoring the fact that the man’s mouth was dangling open in horror of everything he said.

“I am not your precious Tony,” He spoke again, teeth grinding in his mouth. “I am not some fucking boy scout, some savior of humanity. If I had the incentive to do so, I’d burn this entire world to the ground and refuse to even piss on the ashes for fear one of them might just survive as a result.”

With that he’d gotten to his feet, turning away from his ‘friend’ and heading towards the door. Cold wind had hit his face, a scowl creeping over his features at the dastardly weather that surrounded his being with fog and bone chilling humidity. God how he suddenly hated his very existence.

“Tony, wait!” Montoya was calling, apparently unaware of the mood he’d suddenly sunk into. “Tony.”

“I’m NOT him!” The taller man spat, surprised at the simple strength with which he was spun around to face the other.

“Yes. You. Are.” Montoya spelled it out, tongue nearly as lashing as the other’s had been.

The silver head bowed in distress, fingers wrenching through it in frustration.

“You know how I know? Look at me.” Montoya grabbed his face almost painfully, staring up at him with a look of intent that silenced Tony’s disputes. “You know how I know? Because the first time I saw you, I knew just by the way you moved it was Tony. You walk as if the whole wide world is just sitting on your shoulders. Like everything around you is there because you will it to be.

“I look in your eyes, even when you don’t know I am, and I see exactly what I saw so many years ago. You have been lost long before your memory went Tony.”

The man’s mouth tightened, eyebrows furrowing.

“I don’t understand.”

“Your mom died when you were a kid. Your dad left long before that. You were given strength that this world has never seen before. You were an orphan that no body understood or even wanted. You scared everyone around you even when you were trying to save them.

“Your step-dad, look at me,” He grabbed the other’s face once more. “Your step-dad beat you so hard when you were a kid that you ended up killing him.”

“Why are you telling me this,” Tony hissed, wrenching free of Montoya’s grasp.

“Because you wanted to know why you’re so fucking lost,” Montoya poked him hard in the chest. “You don’t even know your past and you’re the first one to insist it isn’t so just because you find everyone around you to be irritating. It isn’t THEM you don’t understand Tony. It’s you!”

So he remained quiet, searching the other’s words, searching for dishonesty that wasn’t there. Montoya was absolutely right. He hadn’t the faintest clue who he was, only that this idealistic version that everyone adored wasn’t correct. Yet maybe in that, he understood something he hadn’t thought of previously; as much as he had no idea who he was, there was a distinct possibility that even those around Tony hadn’t a clue either.

“You are a great man,” Montoya finally spoke, staring up at him. “You are a good man. I don’t say that because I knew you and what you did way back when. I say that because when I look at your eyes, fucking freaky as they are, I see that you’re a good man. I always did and I always have. Now,” He smacked the other in the arm. “let’s go inside and get toasted.”