Very well done, I enjoyed your story. It was emotional and well written. It was almost like I could feel your hero's pain. ~Bravo~
Lady Shalymar
Healing Defender
Virtue Server
Ms Independence
Lady of The White Knights
"The love of liberty is the love of others, the love of power is the love of ourselves."
The White Knights - Hero Hall Headquarters
It wasn't the largest crowd Visio had ever seen, though not really the smallest either. Mack Saliforth's Travelling Side Show hadn't performed this close to Paragon City in years. But then again, sideshows like MacSaliforth's don't draw the same crowd they used to. Not like the old days where a town would hear of your coming and begin celebrating a week in advance. These days, to gather a crowd, you have to stalk them like meat and catch them unawares. And even then, it's like performing for deer caught in the headlights of death's last stroke.
But one thing still hadn't changed. The one thing that kept Visio on stage, performing his sleights of hand and more mysterious arts: the eyes of the younger children that had yet to lose their wonder. Oh, there were still your drug addicts and bullies, plotters, schemers, manipulators, all those that would find a way to cheat you. But the young children hadn't had enough time to be corrupted. They still found joy in something as simple as a quarter appearing from their ear, their nose, their hair. While all the while, their older siblings were trying to figure out how to pocket the coin for themselves and whether there were more where that one came from.
Very few in today's crowd had the much hoped for look of wonder. Though not unexpected this close to Paragon. Paragon City, with its high walls, lax security, drug runners and street hustlers. This is no place for children. This is no place for silent wonder. Not in this city where the mailman has been replaced with drug runners, where the police are in more fear than those they swore to protect, where death waits on every corner, in every alley, on every rooftop. Yet for those few small faces, Visio stepped out on the stage...
Visio never liked to have a "routine" as so many magicians do. He liked to play to the audience. Play WITH the audience. Every show, different than the last, just as the crowd was different. And so it was that he never used the rose he had stored up his sleeve.
In the crowd sat one of the faces he longed to see... full of wonder, if not hope. Her hair was dirty, tied up with twine, and with a wilted daisy tucked within. It was times like this that Visio felt a stirring. Within his very soul? Perhaps. The truth was, he knew not what or how or why. But at times like this, he could perform a magic that went beyond sleight of hand, beyond misdirection. To him, it was REAL magic. And so it was, that waving his hand before the wilted daisy, the dying flower was restored, and upon it appeared the most beautiful butterfly. Alighting briefly upon the girl's nose, then soaring free above the crowd.
How was Visio to know, that following the butterfly with his eyes would bring an end to hope? An end to joy. He had heard of the gang whose members were approaching the crowd. Easy to name them by the dark robes they wore, with wild fringes of reds and yellows. Masks of hatred painted on their faces. The Circle of Thorns. Magicians who practiced dark arts to exert power over the innocent. "Life Mages" some of them were called... but all they bring is death.
The first audience member dropped before Visio could even issue a warning. Dark blasts of power showering down upon the crowd. Without quite knowing how, Visio managed to blind one of the Thorn Wielders as it took aim at a young child. Then, wanting so badly to return the pain they had inflicted on the innocent, he simply... wished it... and saw the Thorn Wielder writhing in pain. But there were too many.
Visio didn't see the mage that was positioned behind him. Did not see the twisted staff in its hand. And so did not see the dark blast that would knock him unconscious. But before the blackness took him, he did see the explosion... the Life Mage that brings nothing but death... but then, only darkness.
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The sun was low in the sky when Visio came to. The mud before him, soaked with his tears and blood. And within arms reach lay the trampled form of a once white daisy. Behind him, the burning embers of the traveling wagon crackled and smoked. And before him stood tall and unforgiving, the walls of Paragon City. The charred remains of a few adult bodies lay strewn about. But all else was gone.
Visio almost wished it was the children's bodies that were charred and destroyed. For if they were not here, they were most surely prisoners of the Circle. Soon to be victims of some dark rite. And Visio was helpless to stop it.
NO! Not helpless. Even from here, Visio could hear the call from Paragon City. A need that could not be filled by superadine, nor corruption, nor hate. A need that touched his heart, a call that would lead him to a new life, a new purpose: "I NEED A HERO!!!!"