Black Square, Venway City
11:00 P.M. (North Sea Time)
Vennish winters are defined with ashes and snow - a blanket of baleful grey and white, in every lunar shade, tainting the cobblestone streets and ominous blackened fortresses that rise above the city's dark skyline as an icon of the Confederation's power. It is a grim setting, but one beloved by the Mutiny Alliance that has ruled the North since time out of mind.
This night, the luminescence of pallid street lamps coalesce with the shadows that consume every corner of the bleak cityscape to mark a city of wakeful preparedness. Line upon line of blackclad M.A. soldiers stand ready for the execution of the state's premiere political prisoner - that Warlock Order butcher, Sergei. Bayonets and swords gleam with an iron-grey reflection of the Venway's nocturnal illumination through a shrouding haze of intensifying snowfall as the condemned prisoner is lead by black hooded executioners towards a wooden scaffold errected at the very center of Black Square.
Ringed in by the regiments of his most elite soldiers, Cypress Dreadslay ascends to the top of the macabre stage as well, dressed in his finest - a black leather trenchcoat over a jacket of obsidian Mardu mesh and a black uniform. Dark blond dreadlocks spill neatly about the edges of the Angel of Caine's ivory features as he lifts his right hand to dismiss the guards carping jealously about him, bidding them to let the crowd see him, to let the entire see him - his reflection captured in the sudden barrage of camera flashes shot forth from a mob of journalists covering the execution.
The brilliant barrage of white flashes felt like a thousand invisible, silent bullets striking for him at once. Cypress smiles coldly, even in the face of his bleak flashback of the Great War.
Drawing his longsword, Number One Assassin, Cypress allows his saphire eyes to sift over the polished, gleaming steel surface of the razored weapon, before he turns back to the crowd.
"Ladies and gentlemen of Venway."
With even those words, Cypress' voice is eraced beneath a sudden explosion of frenzied cheering and chanting. The entire Nationalist camp was out in force tonight, from the politicians down to the common man and women who simply believed in Venway as a country. If any Socialists or nonbelievers were amongst the mob, then they were holding their tongues tightly - for fear of being ripped to shreds by the ones who did believe. It is a most seductive force - the sight of thousands speaking with one voice in support of one's goals and beliefs, and the knowledge that millions speak behind them, as well. A force of nature in itself - spelling defeat to any of these monarchs who stood against him, silencing the opposition with a gag of fear, and altogether terrible - like a beast of war incarnated from the Tempest itself. It was always Cypress' finest tool.
After the crowd quiets its exhilerating display of support, Cypress smiles subversively and walks towards Sergei, who was blindfolded and tied to a black, wooden X. It was the only way that he could be made to stand in a dignified manner for his death. The Mutiny Alliance had already ensured that, even if he had been released, he would never fight, walk, or rape again.
One bad deed deserves another. If no angels or demons would ascend to punish these roving rapist-slavers who butchered the innocent with so much simplicity, then Cypress would do it himself. He always had.
"Three Summers ago..." Cypress speaks with a cold, hateful stare at the bound wretch before him.
"Three Summers ago, you and your band of murderous, genocidal butchers attacked us with no provocation, save for a worthless scrap of bloodthirsty claims your coward of a leader brought against us. In the name of his God and his government, he leveled a thousand guns against Venway and pulled the trigger against her heart."
Cypress abruptly snaps forwards into action, and the crowd begins cheering, screaming, shouting their own oaths of hatred and vendetta. The Angel of Caine acts as their catalyst, driving the pommel of his longsword into the bridge of Sergei's already crushed nose, prompting a yelp of terror and pain from the man that fell upon deaf ears.
"You can't kill us, motherfucker! You can not kill the spirit of the Vennish people, the Vennish ideal, and the Vennish nation. Look at us and look at what is left of your pitiful Warlock Order, and behold the difference between Men and Dogs."
Cypress screams the words with venomous emphasis into Sergei's ears, but then pauses. He had a most clever idea. Smiling in a sudden brushstoke of serenity, as he watches the crowd shouting for blood, the Angel of Caine steps back from Sergei. He reaches forwards and plucks the man's blindfold away, tossing the bloodied fabric aside. Sergei's features are mutated from those of a man into those of a corpse already. His left eye has been gruesomely destroyed, as if someone had driven a shard of glass through it. The nose is broken and re-broken, seeming more like the snout of a swine in its swolen, blunted condition.
Through his right eye, Sergei sees the Bottomless Pit - a hord of Vennish citizens swearing to kill him if Cypress did not do so himself. But he had long since resigned himself to the reality of hopelessness.
"This is a message to Faisal Kafulah and Armand Eastlock. This is a message to all of our enemies. This is what awaits you."
In a sudden flash of movement, Cypress' longsword has cut the ropes suspending Sergei's arms and legs to the X behind him, and the Angel of Caine's left hand has siezed the cripled Warlock Order firebrand by the collar of his ragged prison-issued shirt. His one good eye meets both of Cypress' for a split second, before Sergei is tossed into the forefront of the civilian audiance.
Needless to say, his demise is far worse and more humiliating than what a swift execution by a firing squad would have been. No blindfold, no bullets, no upright posture. Sergei of the Warlock Order is literally beat until he is no longer distinguishable as a human corpse.
Cypress leaves after throwing Sergei to the merciless crowd of Vennish civilians. His guards once more drape his presence, before he slips into the veils of Obsfucate and leaves them as well - going to revel amongst his people.
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