Interview Excerpt

A remembered villain reminisces about one forgotten.

"How did I become this? How did I achieve such greatness already? Well it certainly wasn't a gift given to me from my father, as it should have. A drunken, blabbering mess. Clumsily bashing their woman when he felt slighted by the pathetic labor he toiled endlessly in. He was just like any of the other broken and powerless plebeians that toiled in the mines, choking on fumes to meet their meager ends. Like any other broken, worthless man amongst the others."

"Then, one day, there finally come one who was worthy. General Barook. You won't find many records of their existence, as they were destroyed along with everything else written of the Twin Wars by the CCRI. During their 'reformation' acts. But I was there. I was there to see greatness in its prime, to be blessed with the gift of witnessing artistry first hand. Before then, I only knew agony as skinning a man alive on a cross, or shattering limbs with dulled blades. Crude. Simple. Clumsy. Nothing better then what a tribal would do to one of our own, as that was only what our backwater dead-end village was graced with. Mediocrity drowning within itself."

"I was amongst the first to witness their arrival, before being dragged underneath a cabin. Clouds of dust reached to the sky, drenching everything it's shadow. As if it knew of the power they held, it followed the same man a legion of soldiers and machines followed, ravenously charging forward with them. All clad in the various armors of other unworthy. Unwashed of their failures, as dried stains and chunks. And at the helm, was the General, riding stout and towering over the inferiors he led. Their might shook the ground beneath us and radiated such grace it permeated every inch of our wistless bodies. So much so I was able to witness my father's weakness a final time. Barking orders to his woman, trembling while drawing his sword from the wall-mount, bumbling out of the door as he cowardly ran towards the rest of the guard for their vein protection. That was when his woman tucked me away, and unwittingly allowed me to witness the gift I should have received."

"It began with the local guard. They put up such a pathetic defense that Barook didn't even grace them a spectacular death like the rest. He let them hang from power-poles tied only from their sword-swinging arm. All the other limbs were lobbed off, so they could bleed dry while watching the rest of the village they failed to save burn. The hand they used to defy the General would be the one they hung from. Rightly, the General deemed them unworthy of his artistry, and let them succumb to a pathetic fate."

"However, the General was not as careless with the rest. He should have, but the gift of greatness was shown to them nonetheless. Bestowing them with careful genius unfitting to those not even worth the time. He gave such... careful thought to each of their suffering. I'd watch him deliver punishments from beneath the balcony he stood upon. The men he judged did not deserve even a moment of the thought that Barook considered with how they would agonize, but yet he was benevolent enough to do so. With each. And every. Single. One of them."

"I saw a master at work of their craft."

"...during that time only I survived by living beneath the cabin Barook took command from, like a parasite. I fed from the genius he would bestow on his ungrateful lackeys. The war give him a keen and deep understanding of human endurance. Not just what a doctor could learn from the study of anatomy... he saw the human spirit and understood it. A man wouldn't collapse because simply because they lacked the blood to move, but they lost the hope to even endure beyond such a point."

"He saw this human spirit in every prisoner he kept, and knew how to break it. Not just their will, or hope, or even their cherished memories. General Barook broke their souls."

"Such a wealth of knowledge was simply being overheard through the house's floorboards. It nourished me, much more-so then the charred human flesh left in piles by the furnaces. It was such greatness I felt I had to endure to cherish it. It fueled me. It made me hungrier, ravenous for more. Enough to sneak into the General's quarters during the day, knowing what could await me. I craved death, but craved it more in others then myself. It was finally a gift worthy of receiving."

"So I would read his journals, his notebooks. Methods of anguish were plotted in amazing detail, both of body and mind. It was like peering into a man's dreams... he was quite an artist with a pen as well. Words and images were so vivid I could see them in my own mind, and understand them. When he ran out of ink, he'd write in blood. You could tell how fresh the drawings were by how red and smeared the lines were. Many lessons were learned while I huddled behind the furnaces at night for light and warmth, even when there were no bodies left to burn. Barook took his time with each one left alive. Too long. During the final weeks, I had to satiate myself with maggots once the guards began to rot."

"Then, the final night came. The war called for him elsewhere. Leaving his work unfinished to the pitiful few left to witness it. I could tell that if he had the time, my home would have become a beautiful living art-piece."

"The unworthy scum that remained in my town received the fate they deserved, abandoned and incomplete. He let them go. Ones he truly hated were to be fought for across the battlefield. Those were the ones he would never let go of. From the short time I knew General Barook, I learned a lifetime of wisdom from a man that did not deserve the world he was unleashed upon. It was too soft. Too... easy. The Twin Wars gave him only a fraction of a moment in history to act, giving the United Confederacy an understanding of what his terror really looked like beyond propaganda posters."

"It was thanks to him I was given the means to begin my own path to greatness, what I needed to hone my craft. Such efficient brutality, befitting the perfect leader. It was only due to the war's chaos he was given an untimely death at its end."

"Now there is no war. No chaos to get in the way of my own ambitions. Where he fell, I will make sure to carry on. Confederate soldiers from a by-gone age will no longer be the only ones to taste his wrath, but the rest of the world will feel it with my own. The world will never see the mercy of chaos once I am done. Nothing will allow the world to escape."

"I will make sure of it."

- Alexander The Immolater