Retaliation part 2

In which the enduring Supreme Overlord is shocked by enormous, spontaneous mood-swings...


Story: Retaliation part 2
Author: Torture-Device

You may, dear reader, find all of this very amusing. I am somewhat inclined to agree.

It takes a certain determination to make an end-product from this, to sift through a pile of mud and feces and pluck out diamonds. It can be most wearisome. But there is still amusement to be had at the deeper things one finds.

For instance, this Torture-Device fellow.

Sweet Lelith already mentioned that he is supposedly a journalist. Also that he is Russian.

To the man's credit, he's never really "exploded" at criticism of his art, mainly because the only people who generally comment negatively on his paintings or drawings are the ones who connect his ideology to his creativity (Occasionally a fair connection, but not always). Nearly every other person who comments on his stuff is one of many lame-brained well-wishers who flock to him like lambs.

Seriously, just look at these.

A couple good, independent artists, some of whom share his interesting ideas on life, and of them a handful comment on the picture as a piece of art and discuss its merits and weaknesses.

Then a million other "OMGSOBEAUTIFUL" comments from people with hastily-made flashing swastika icons.

When you look at the comments on Retaliation part 1, it's the exact same babble. The very first comment is, "Oh snap son, epic stuff right here 83 <3". Nobody says a word about the writing itself. The most critically inclined comments run along the lines of "I like this character" or "He reminds me of this guy..."

Torture-Device is viciously active in the deviantart forums, and many of the people who watch him do so only because he is one of the more unique performing jesters there, not because he's a decent artist, and the comments on his artwork reflect this.

Torture-device insists on speaking English and writing stories in English, but he's fucking horrible at it. He is completely forgettable when it comes to nuances such as grammar and plot structure.

And I assure you, the plots he works out with WalkingMaelstrom suggest he can't think things through before he sits down and starts slamming against a keyboard.

The main reason that I ever even heard of this series was because I came across this picture right here:

I get off to the sight of craftworlders being violated.

And here, we see Torturer raping a couple of aspect warriors like it's no big deal. He looks like he's enjoying himself in his depravity. But this is, unfortunately, a far-cry from the Torturer he writes about.

Why do I bring this up?

Look at the picture of Torturer in the title-card, then compare it to Torture-Device's "original" work and you will know just how much he obsesses over this series.

Part 2 opens with...

Torturer stretched slowly, each movement as a test of his body. Joints clicking in place, implants writhing under the skin like metallic worms buried deep in the flesh, the faint creak of muscle tissue being pumped full of blood - all the sounds coiled into a melody praising his physique. The inevitable pain that stemmed from the newly healed wounds only added to the delightful feeling of restoring. His body was working. Flawlessly.

Torturer stretching? And being flawless?

So right off the bat we are met with Torturer slapping Razorwire's shit in an apparent sparring match, and we get the sense that it's been a while since the titanic hours-long "battle". Torturer probably booked it from Grexx faster than a basilisk on water, and his wounds are healing, so we can assume it's been at least a few days since his faux-battle with Cailean.

At least, I think he's fighting Razorwire. Might be he's not. This passage is a tad confusing.

Stimulants rolled lazily down his veins, granting confidence and elation. Adding to the satisfaction was a long moan from the farthest corner of the training hall. The Noise Raptor slowly strode down to the hulked mass obscured by the shadow, and with a movement of his foot flung something away from it. A training battlehammer clacked on the floor, smearing blood across it. The Chaos Marine kneeled down and cocked his head to a side.

"Subordination, Razorwire. What I really should do…" Torturer picked up the heavy weapon and observed its bloodstained working surface. "Is take this and hammer the notion right into your head. Right? Because that's what any normal leader does when faced with such irreverence."

He heard the Havoc spit out blood and shift, trying to get up and continue the sparring, and promptly brought the hammers head into Razorwires outstretched arm. The force of the hit was enough for bone to let out a sickly "crack".

 Torture-Device is, recognizably, a far better writer than WalkingMaelstrom, and he makes the distinction of actually calling Razorwire a havoc, not a devastator, something which has irked me greatly these last several parts. But the problem is still that his English is atrocious, and it can become very weird, very quickly.

So the author takes the next several pages to shed a bit of light on the behavior of his self-insert, and sure enough he's all moody because he "lost" to some dumb stain of a psyker. From the narration, it is further implied to us that Torturer's ship is alive and completely out of the crew's control.

Such actions would disturb the "Engine of Obscenity." That was undesirable. Who knew where she would take them when angered?

Further, it seems he is going around without a gellar field on his ship, which begs the question how he has not been utterly swallowed. The warp is a fickle place.

And another thing!

The paragraphing is uncanny in Torture-Device's writing. He has lines that are separated by single spaces and then some sections are double-spaced, and while I usually prefer double spacing because of how easier it is to distinguish between lines.

But with Torture-Device, he's going between the two interchangeably, and it doesn't work.

During the flight, the only human that that was forced to bear the full weight of Torturers dysphoria as he had to remain glued to the commanding bridge, was the Captain.

Torturer knew how to pilot a small fighter ship, like the one he hijacked from the Blood Disciples.

Note the complete non sequitur there. But that paragraph is then followed a couple spaces down with:

But the "Engine of Obscenity" was a big, Infidel raider vessel, a home for 91 mortal entities, basically a floating cathedral crammed full of weapon systems, praying chambers, generators and warp drives. He had no ability to submit and pilot such a ship, so every time he'd reach the peak of his frustration with Captain Tarregus, he'd back off well knowing that the latter is too vital an object. And Captain Uthark Tarregus was a brave man.

  That particular paragraph just goes on without any spacing at all. Torture-Device does not know how to make text presentable.
You must give it to him, he knows how to craft a scene at the least, but that's all I can really grant after several misspellings, tense-shifts, comma splices, comma misuses, improper capitalizations, quotation mark-abuses, and on and on.

So later, Torturer goes to visit Zekkel, and then is polite enough to remind us he has functioning naughty bits.

"This…"  he returned to the capsule and shook the piece of flesh in Torturers direction. "Is so you, isn't it? You should agree, definitely should."

"She sucked me dry, I granted her a quick death." Torturer smiled slightly beneath the mask. He thought of a small box, full of blood-red, slightly shimmering jewels. It was getting fuller with each day as he pulled an Eldar slave out of a holding cell. He always found their soulstones, despite their attempts to hide them in most peculiar places, even within their own natural orifices. But he, Torturer, had a real hound nose for the soulstones.

 
Am I seeing this wrong, or was it just implied Torturer sticks his nose up craftworlder asses?

How gauche! And yet arousing.

I should point on something of an oddity. Torturer insists he have order and respect in his warband, despite being knee-deep in debauchery for the sake of She Who Thirsts. As if the Chaos gods were anything but chaotic! Any traitor space marine pact I've ever encountered was a rag-tag mess of men all ready to cut one-another's throats, stayed only by the promise of better riches through cooperation.

And Zekkel is revealed to be the absolute master of bad insults:

"Assault on the loyalist fleabags – total success, it was!"

 You're really cool, Zekkel. Calling people fleabags.

Torturer is apparently in need of cheering up, which is why he is seeing Zekkel. If anything, I suppose the "demagogue" is good for that. Their conversation largely revolves around Zekkel consoling Torturer, because the "noise raptor" is depressed at having not killed a Librarian.

And this is where suddenly, I sense something is horribly wrong.

"I nearly get killed! Had Tarregus and is men fail to teleport me, my brains would be splattered all over that warp-forsaken rock!"

Torturer and the Sick Six were flown away in a random Thunderhawk in Symphony of Chaos part 2, not teleported! Could it be that Torture-Device isn't actually reading from WalkingMaelstrom's writing? I'm beginning to think so. The two write so differently from one-another that these sorts of contradictions and retcons make reading even more difficult than it already was.

This becomes even more worrying when we shift to Cailean's perspective, who we must hear from because unfortunately someone somewhere (a certain author) insists he is the greatest opposition to Torturer there is.

The Librarian though, knew nothing of the hate the Interrogator bore for him and his kind. Probably he wouldn't even care if he knew. He was consumed by his own brand of loathing, and after he pushed a ragged curtain away to reveal a trio of tied up cultists clustered under the watchful barrels of two Stormtroopers, that somewhat pleasing feeling inflated in his chest. One of the troopers turned to the Space Marine, mouth agape in amusement and stammered, greeting him.

"Your Hi-highness, b-but, Lieutenant Ksi-Xin… She h-ha…had orders… "

Cailean's stare lacked any of the paternal softness often attributed to the god-like marines, and Trooper Rale felt himself a sizzling away insect as the Librarian towered over him, the golden eagle on his helmet scratching at the piece of ferrocrite plating above them. In a second, all his desire to follow Xin's, or anyone else's orders, if they were in disagreement with the marine's wishes, evaporated. He lowered his eyes and stepped away, somewhat shaken. Two other marines, Veridus and Seo followed, and soon the small compartment, hastily built up, was completely crammed. Pain hissed behind the Astartes' backs that he's got full rights to the heretics and that he, as the Lady Inquisitor's Interrogator, should be doing the questioning first, but no one listened to him.

When did Cailean become so utterly frightening? This is a completely different character from what we saw last part, let alone in WalkingMaelstrom's writing! Somewhere along the lines he gained a loathing for mortals and a murderous rage, as opposed to his conveniently-timed exclamatory battle-anger.

My favorite part of that, though is how the storm trooper (once again, battle-scarred badass) is gaping in amusement. Apparently he found Cailean so ridiculous he could not physically summon laughter.

With a psychic hood like that, who can blame the trooper?

And then it begins to get really weird.

The Librarian felt his lips form an unpleasant smile. Crying. The woman should've cried a long time ago, the very moment when the thought of turning away from the Emperor's light crossed her mind. Now, however, it was time to reap the fruit of it, so why cry? This world, thought Cailean, would much better, if people learned to accept the consequences. People. These, however, were people no more. With such a conclusion, he grabbed the technician heretic by the cuff of his collar and hoisted him in the air, for better eye contact. The woman cried and attempted to stand up, but the barrel of an autogun stuck in her ear made her sit back again.

Then the point of view quite suddenly shifts to the cultist he's just lifted up, Ioruk Korr, who we are told was so excited to fight space marines he looked up how to beat them on the holonet. No, I refuse to even comment on this supposed holonet.

Cailean casually crushes his neck and moves on to the next one, with a smile that makes even me uncomfortable. Seo then appears and grows perturbed by the epistolary's behavior. He insists the Inquisition be left to finish interrogating the cultists, but Cailean simply laughs at him.

"You know what I can do to these worthless little animals? Can the Inquisition do this?"

He looked back at Lynn once. With a flick of his wrist, the channeled psychic energy that he had been harboring coursed down his arm. It was painful.

The reality was that he was completely drained and exhausted in the previous battle and the attempt to perform exorcism on the Death Spirits' Chaplain. Now, releasing the last stored energy felt like tearing veins away from his body, like some force had sliced him open and ripped his nerves out. His arteries bulged and darkened from the effort, the hood sending sparks flying from the overload. But at the same time, it was needed.

It took upon the form of electricity, as nearly always. Cailean sensed the lightning lick at his palm and then dash at the victim of his righteous fury.

Lynn went up in flames. The agony was instant as the tied up woman began burning alive, enveloped in shroud of what appeared to be pulsing azure flames that seemed to rapidly shred layer after layer of the exposed skin and cloth of the captured woman.

The Inquisitorial troopers jumped away and even the Exorciatior went aghast at the sight of the heretic's flesh melting and popping under the force of the psychic fire. Trooper Rale raised his gun to put an end to the screaming woman, but Cailean, upon noticing that, steered the gun's barrel away from Lynn. He wouldn't allow someone to intervene in the moment when vengeance took its place. All the time, he'd been watching the woman, tracking her thoughts. It was all pain, pure pain, and not an ounce of repentance. He gritted his teeth. All useless, all the same. But on another level – it was sure nice to see things fall back in order. It somehow patched up that hole in his mind, the hole that lead to a place he preferred not to think about.

There are no words.

---~~~---

Well, that left me wondering who's really the good guy in this series. That may have been Torture-Device's intent, though. The idea that he might have accomplished his goal scares me.

It would appear my language grows coarser with each passing review. I attribute this to the asinine nature of this series and the constant feeling I'm being quietly insulted.

I need a break to take the edge off of this. Dear Lelith is performing tomorrow night, so hopefully that will make for a rejuvenating experience. Seeing her lithe form, spinning and sailing through sprayed gore and severed limbs, her hair flowing and clattering with the jingle of a hundred blades as blood splatters onto those high cheekbones and showers her exposed form...

Simply beautiful.

The thought of seeing Lelith's dance of death makes me randy. I might have to call up that harlequin and his mate that Ilathin mentioned. I am told they can do wonderful things with their contortions.

Ta ta, my sweet little readers!

- V.