The Weight of Sin: Escalation

by Jason Spade Thu Jan 12, 2023 2:44 am

An interviewer stands by with Jason Spade.

"Jason, this morning, The Arsenal of Tailcoat Val posted a video on their Twitter feed from Val herself claiming that your business with her is far from over. What do you have to say about this development? Do you have any comment on Val seemingly punishing you for your relationship with Madison Wright?"

"That's just the cover up story. A convenient smokescreen. When Val spoke to Madison at Attack on Australia, I heard it right from her mouth. It was never some crusade to punish me for my sins... She's still mad that I blew up her little compound. Val can pretend that she's some kind of dark, avenging knight coming at the beck and call of a woman scorned. Hell, I believed it for a while, too. But turns out, at the end of the day, she's nothing but a petty, sore loser, just like every other person I've... I've ever..."

Spade stops as something catches his eye. Down the hall stands Tailcoat Val herself, arms tucked behind her back, her masked eyes staring straight at him. Spade scoffs.

"Excuse me."

Spade starts making his way towards Val, who quickly disappears around a corner. Spade picks up the pace, turning the corner straight into a masked figure! Startled, Spade punches the figure, which falls over lifelessly... A mannequin. Spade scoffs again, as though in disbelief that Val would pull such a prank. Spade turns around only to be face-to-Mask with the woman herself, and quickly Spade is again blinded by Val's poisoned mist!

Spade's eyes and mouth begin to burn and itch as they had before, but he quickly realizes something is different. There was something else, something mixed into the mist that altered his perception. She had drugged him, not unlike her past victims, and he struggled against it.

"It's true that retribution for my compound is a secondary goal."

Spade, still partially blinded, turns toward the sound of Val's voice but sees nothing.

"But you and I both know it's more than that."

Spade turns again, this time coming face to face with another masked mannequin that he quickly knocks aside. The mist is started to clear, but he is dizzy and nauseous. He finds himself surrounded by mannequins that disappear when he strikes them, as if they were never there in the first place.

"You are a blight. Guilt ridden, rabid... Aimless."

"You don't know me..."

"I don't have to. You're an open book. You lash out at the world because you're fighting against your nature. You want so desperately to be the superheroes you grew up idolizing, but you couldn't be further from them."

"Stop... Stop it."

"Blood and broken bones are your legacy. You will disappear into the darkness of memory not as a triumphant hero, but as a broken man, vilified by his contemporaries and buried under the weight of his own regrets. It's time for you to go... Time for you to be forgotten."

The mist finally clears, the masked mannequins fade away in the green haze... And finally, Spade sees the woman herself. Tailcoat Val stands before him, and Spade immediately advances on her.

"I've had it with you!"

Spade grabs Val and presses her against the concrete wall.

"This is what you want, right? Is this what you want?!"

Spade slaps Val across the face, dislodging her mask. Spade grabs the mask and tears it off to look into the eye of his tormentor, but recoils in horror and steps back... It was not Val, but another woman that he didn't recognize. Young, barely twenty, and smiling at him. Her bloody lip- courtesy of Spade- stains her teeth white.

"Mistress Val sends her regards."

And the woman sinks to the floor, laughing. Spade watches her, his green-stained face devoid of emotion, his hands noticeably shaking.

There was no going back from this.