No More Bros Left To Give

“Go ahead and shoot! I’ll be back! I ALWAYS COME BACK.. yeah. But dying is SUCH a bitch.” - Chucky - CLASSIFICATION: SECRET

DATE: 15 June 2024

MEMORANDUM FOR: Comrade Alexei Ruslan

SUBJECT: Commissar Maximillian Wilhelm Kael (ДО - К36л)

Comrade Alexei Ruslan,

Let me begin by conveying my heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to be working with a stalwart of the Old Guard such as yourself. Indeed, it is rare these days to find veterans who can recall the names of Vladmirmir Zaimov and Konstantin Abazovsky from living memory. Most have retired to a well earned peace or joined our forefathers in duly honored rest. How spectacular a specimen you are, Comrade Ruslan.

I hope that this missive finds you in good health and high spirits following Starsky Praporschihik Ivan Stanislav’s performance on ReVial 50. Truly his time in service to the Motherland prepared him for such dazzling feats, even beyond what some might consider his most useful days.

I am Polkovnik Ratimir Nekkshov, GRU-19.

High Command as seen fit to entrust Diplomatic Officer Commissar Maximillian Wilhelm Kael to my charge given the experimental nature of his recovery program. If convenient, please provide all information you may have on the Commissar. If inconvenient, send all the same.

How was it your generation preferred to sign off?

For the Motherland. What a magical time it must have been.

Cordially,

Colonel Ratimir Nekkshov ГРУ-19

-   You ran me over with a truck, Jason.  How FUCKING dare you treat me like common road kill!  What were you without me?! When we joined PRIME together, I dragged you up from the dredges with that other worthless husk, Eddie Cross.  I gave you purpose, I gave you screen time when nobody gave a shit! I made you worth something when you weren’t worth SPIT. And you ran me over with a fucking truck over some skirt?! WHY?! I am your Bro!.. Well, I was your Bro.  ..and when I pull myself together, you son of a bitch, I’m gonna get you.. ..now please excuse me, I’ve got somewhere dead to be..    -   ...In an afterlife… …shortly after ReVival 50..

“..have you tried ..NOT.. dying for five minutes..”

The sound of His voice is a mixture of appalled disgust and still grasping disbelief.

“Woah, woah, that’s totally not fair! I wasn’t looking to get crushed beneath some.. kind of Monster Wiener Truck. Who could have predicted antagonizing a horny Homo heidelbergensis would have resulted in him making brash, murderous decisions?!” Max pleads once again in the center of the great throne room.

Lord Farthington sits upon his throne cradling his forehead while staring at his own feet.

‘Also this all kind of stems from your handling of the Violent Purple situation, just saying.” Kael snarks out of the corner of his mouth. His petty little heart swells with antagonistic joy. He savors the little spike of spite he jabs at Him.

It’s a pathetically short moment of celebration.

Max feels his body being lifted up before hurdling across the smooth stone floor of the vast chamber. The gathered Fragments gasp and fuss in the gallery, fear growing in their eyes.

He stands from his throne glaring down at Max. His eyes are storm clouds gathered in deep recesses of his stern face. The air around Him sizzles with power and distant thunder rumbles from the depths of Lord Farthington’s chest.

“I’m a reasonable man but failure MUST have consequences.”

His condescending English voice booms forth, crashing across Max’s body as he lays wracked with pain on the floor.

“Maximillian Wilhelm Kael, son of Wilhelm Helgrim von Kael, I release you from my service.” He declares, pointing an accusing finger down at Max who continues to wriggle and writhe in agony. “Go, now, and die.. However you see fi-”

Before He can finish there is a far distant snapping sound akin to hundreds of rubber bands finally reaching their elastic limitations. A hot, angry wind blows through the throne room bringing with it the stench of rot and decay. A feral growl rattles the doors of the Throne Room, the sound of crawls scratching at the walls surrounding all.

Lord Farthington retreats back to his throne, a hand lifted to his face to try and ward away the hideous stench that assaulted him.

“What is happening?!” He demands, taking his seat on the Throne as the shadows around the chamber boil forth with millions of tiny black spiders. Ignoring the Fragments, the spiders seem to descend upon Max’s motionless body. Forcing open his mouth they file inside, an impossible number cramming themselves down his throat.

“..heh-heh..”

Bones snap and pop as Max draws himself up from the floor, his eyelids fluttering with ecstasy as he draws in a deep, rasping breath.

“No-no, that’s not right. He CAN'T be here..” Max Shell protests, as usual, the first Fragment to grasp the situation.

He glowers down at Max, no fear on Lord Farthington’s face but rather his expression is painted by the shades of annoyance.

“I don’t care who it is. I’m DONE with him. With all of you. I’ll handle the matter of my son.. On my own.” 

He makes a sweeping, dismissive gesture with his hand, as though he were wiping a chessboard. A few of the fragments manage surprised gasps though most simply flash out of existence without so much as a giggle.

Save for Max.

“What is this?”

He stands and waves his hand toward Max once again, this time with more force. The last vestige of Max Kael stubbornly refuses to vanish. Another low, gurgling chortle escapes Max’s throat as he lets his shoulders roll back.

“...darling..”

A single, burning red eye snaps open toward Lord Farthington as the world around Max contorts and bends in uncomfortable dimensions. It’s as if the very Kaelscape around them rejects his presence. The sounds of this reality creaking and snapping beneath this baleful red eyes glare. He nearly wrenches as the air violently caresses his olfactory senses.

“Impossible. This is MY domain.. This is MY body..” Farthington says in disbelief. He can feel his own strength beginning to drain, drawn into the parasitic abomination that stood before him.

The malice pouring forth from that singular red eye corrupts Max’s skin, staining it with infectious pools of rot. Thick black veins pulsate beneath his skin as the shadowy entity digs its claws deeper into its host. A languid smile draws back to reveal broken, blackened teeth set into sour gums.

“Is that so? Well then this must be.. very ..alarming. Give me a minute while I catch myself up on things.. This isn’t exactly Max Kael, is it? Something's off but given what I’ve seen so far, I’m going to guess Mike was successful in killing the old us.. Heh-heh..”

“You’re not Max Kael?.. Or one of his confounded aberrations?” He asks, the bite leaving his words despite his attempts to add as much bass to his voice as possible. Grotesque ego and unearned arrogance could often be mistaken for bravery.

The burning red eye was like a shard of fiery ruby set deep into the left side of Max’s face. It flickered and pulsated as it riffled through the memories of the Max Kael it presently possessed. It stares at Lord Farthington, through him and across the vaste Kaelscape behind him.

Then it laughs. A sickening, mocking laugh that tears at the vocal cords and fills the throat with blood.

“..no.. heh-heh.. Not Max..”

Lord Farthington feels dozens of hands suddenly reach out from his throne. He has no time to react as he feels thin boney fingers fastening themselves around his legs and arms. He feels fingernails digging into his flesh, hands eagerly reaching for his neck to strangle him.

“I do like word aberration.. Mm.. tastes nice on my lips.”

He tries to scream out but the sound is violently choked down before it can reach his lips.

There is a struggle but it is ultimately fruitless. Like a fly entangled in the spider’s web all Farthington can do is stare in wide eyed disbelief at the thing shambling toward him.

“..Darling, ‘round these parts they call me..”

That burning spit of hate flickering in Max’s left eye socket explodes with a murderous red light, consuming Lord Farthington in its crimson majesty.

“..T̵̗̰̅h̷e̸̟̊̆ ̷͈͊̌M̷ȋ̴̹nis̴͋̆t̴͌ë̵̼́r̵̥̻̿.”

-   It probably hasn’t dawned on you yet how fucked you are.  The last time we faced each other I stomped you into the ground leaving you tits up in the middle of the ring. And, if I recall, it was Violent Purple who smashed your fucking head open and let me do it.  Yet you’re still a fucking cuck for her. And I thought JCH thirsted for toxic relationships. You threw away Nashville Hot Chicken for Hot Dogs and hair dye. I could literally shit myself with rage but I’m afraid of getting sued by the Brandon Youngblood foundation.  So you want to be her hero more than my Bro?  Fine, Jason, you win. If you want to be the Hero Consider this my last act of Friendship, Bro..    -.    …Secret GRU-19 Medical Facility, Russia… …the night after ReVival 50..

“[So how long is this supposed to take?]”

The body had been mangled, bone and muscle had been crushed beneath the wheels of the MONSTER WEINER HOTDOG TRUCK. Burnt hair and chard flesh were visible poking through the blood stained bandages that obscure most of his body. Wires and tubes running from his body to the various machines around him were monitoring his vitals and ensuring he stayed alive. .

“[How should I know, Vladimir, I’ve never done anything like this.]” a tall medtech named Gorche replies, checking Max’s eyes for any activity. Both men wore GRU-19 MedTech uniforms and worse high level security clearance badges. Wherever they had brought Max, it wouldn’t be found listed in any public records.

Vladimir examines the small vial of green black liquid his partner had just injected into their patient. It is almost hypnotic, the swirling miasma of black and green contained within.

“[Colonel Ratimir received that from our comrades over at the Ministry of State Security in Beijing. Six years ago, in conjunction with the Kim Jung-Un regime, Chinese scientists engineered this serum to push the physical body to heal and de-age. Unfortunately it was genetically coded to this man.]” Gorche continues.

Short Vladimir sets the vial down, shaking his head in disbelief.

[“Impossible, Gorche, if the Chinese had invented such a thing, we would have known.”]

With a sigh, Gorche shrugs.

[“Doesn’t really matter what either of us believes, Vlad. There is already a disparity in the DNA. This man claims to be Maximillian Wilhelm Kael but the genetic material Comrade Ruslan collected is only half Kael. So even if the story is true, there is no indication that this serum will work.]”

As if fate heard Gorche’s words, the body on the table begins to violently convulse. Alarms sound off around the room as the monitoring equipment blares.

Shock takes hold at first, both men staring at each other in bewilderment. Immediately their training kicks in, both rushing to their stations. The taller medtech moves to Max’s body in an attempt to secure it down.

[“He’s burning up!”] Gorche yells as he struggles to keep Kael’s body pinned to his bed. Sweat and blood soaks the bandages that cover his body.

[“Vitals are off the chart! He’s nearing two hundred heart beats a second, he’s going to enter cardiac arrest if we don’t slow it down!”] the shorter man shouts while securing a syringe containing a sedative.

[“We don’t know how that will react with the serum, it could kill him, Vlad.”]

The two make eye contact. Both acknowledge the risk without saying a word. With a nod, Gorche grants his unspoken approval.

Before Vlad can pierce Max’s burning flesh it lights aflame with a bright white light. Pale luminance burns through the bandages and consumes everything that flees in vain before it.

The brilliance spent, a sweltering, choking darkness rushes back into the room. The smell of ozone and burnt flesh hangs like a cloud in the shadows. Infrequent flashes of electrical discharges left lingering in the burnt out equipment gives momentary glimpses into the ruin left in the wake of Max’s violent regeneration.

“..heh-heh..”

The giggle turns into a sigh of deep relief.

A distant thud announces the return of light as the back up generators kick on. All around the table it is as if a bomb has gone off. Strangely the broken equipment and the shattered remains of the two medtechs scattered in a circular pattern which looks too deliberate to have been a random happenstance.

Sitting on the table, stretching and admiring his fully healed body was Maximillian Wilhelm Kael. Gone are the burns, the mangled bone and ripped muscle. Instead he looks fresh as the moment he was flushed from the Farthington Jizz Pod a year ago.

Bone pops and muscle stretches as he slides off the table and blinks.

As a tight grin spreads across his face as Max lets out a low, guttural chuckle. His left eye bulges and twitches before crimson tendrils wash across the white of his eye. The burst capillary fills his eye and begins to drip, like a tear, down his cheek.

Looking around the room the Minister takes in the carnage with a satisfied glee. He slowly licks his lips and looks forward, staring off toward some unseen Horizon smiling broadly.

“.heh.”       “.heh.” “ heh-heh.”   ”hah-heh..” “Hah-hAh..Hah-Heh-HAH” .”Hah-heh-HAH..eh-heh” “hEH-Hah. heh-Heh” “..heh-heh..” “.Hah.” “..” -   Maybe it is fate, perhaps serendipity, Jason, we can’t be sure.  He is faced with an unanticipated Revelation.  His mind buckles beneath enlightenment. . He didn’t think he would taste such hatred again.  It burns his tongue and fills his mouth with ash.  He longs to share it with you, Hero. - …The Primrose Chateau, France… …Sometime before Tropical Turmoil…

“I haven’t heard or seen anything about Grandfather since we were last here!”

The Herald cheerfully marches down the long hall leading toward the Mirror Room at his family's Summer home.

“You think he’s okay? Usually he’s told me he’d paid a gypsy to curse me at least once by now.”

The Minister follows Bentley like a wolf stalking a crippled fawn. A smug smirk clings to his face, his teeth just barely visible between the cracks in his lips.

“He’s probably sleeping, old people do that alot.” the Minister croaks, folding his arms neatly behind his back. “I wouldn’t dwell on it, the Herald. I promise he won’t mind us using his little Mirror Room for a few moments.. Heh-heh..”

“I’m not complaining, after that time he hired the gardeners to chase me into the Forbidden Woods, I’ve felt unwelcomed here. Family is weird.”

The Minister flinches as he listens to the Herald speak. He should find this creature annoying, this pathetic, mulling pissant of a man-child. But, either due to his unrelenting cheerfulness or his brazen ignorance, he felt the unusual squirming of pity wriggling beneath his flesh..

“Well anyway, here we are! This room is really creepy so I’m gonna go feed the turtles over in the Reptile Parlor! Okay, bye!”

Opening wide the doors to the Mirror Room the Herald turns on his little golden slippers and prances away. It’s a proud prance, the kind of prance you’d expect from someone who spent their entire life working on that specific prance.

The Minister reconsiders his stance on pitying Bentley. Of course, he doesn’t lie to himself, his opinion remains unchanged, damnedable pitable the Herald. Spinning dramatically, the Minister shutters the doors to the Mirror Room, sequestering himself away with a hundred reflections of himself.

Not disconcerting.

“Oh my, they weren’t kidding. This IS a Mirror Room.”

He takes in the massive room filled from floor to ceiling with mirrors of different shapes and sizes. A hundred years ago these kinds of rooms existed purely as a display of a family's wealth and power. Now they were creepy relics of a time before Selfies.

His blood stained left eye darts across the silvered surfaces of the mirrors, one after another for something.. Or someone. It is not long before he locates his quarry, standing in a small gold framed mirror in the back of the room.

Maximillian Wilhelm Kael, staring back at the Minister with startled confusion. For him the last memory he had was being thrown across the Throne Room floor. Now he was staring out at the world from the wrong side of a mirror.

“..Minister?”

“Max, Darling, I was hoping I’d find you here..” the Minister hisses, sauntering up to the mirror sizing Max up with his bloodied left eye.

“..uh.. This is different?” Max’s voice sounds hollow and distant as it coldly rings out from the mirror.

“Lord Farthigton managed to destroy the other fragments but I’m the O.G.- B.G., I don’t care if this body is only half-Kael. I’ve had your entire lifetime to figure out how this noodle of yours works, Max, my boy, there isn’t a trick that prick Farthington has that I didn’t master decades before he got here. Heh-heh.. No, he couldn’t get rid of you either. You’re the Prime personality, after all.”

Max stares in wonder at the Minister.

“How did you figure all that out?”

The Minister gives Max an incredulous, bordering on offended look. .

“It’s all up here, Max. You’ve got access to the same data I do, you’re just as dumb as you act most of the time.”

“Glee, thanks? So what? Gonna kill us again?”

The Minister ponders the thought, turning away from the mirror while he strokes his chin. Turning back toward Max he offers a low bow.

“I had thought about it but what fun would that be? We’re free from the Best Family. We’re free of Chicago. My past self -won-.” the thing inhabiting Max’s mind gloats, parched lips spreading into a wide grin. “.. from what I can tell they used the same Chinese healing serum they used on us in 2019 that unleashed me then. Reintroducing the chemical into our system awakened the ego-memory of me. Now I’m vaxxed, waxed and ready to enjoy the life I’ve earned..heh-heh..”

“And what does that mean for me?”

The Minister lets one hand rest on his waist while holding the other aloft in the air, pantomiming dancing while dwelling on Max’s question..

“...existence can be exhausting sometimes, Max, Darling, and unfortunately I can’t pilot this hunk of meat indefinitely. I’m not the real Minister, just a Fragment of it, much to my chagrin. I need a host, a personality to latch onto if I want to remain strong. Lord Farthington is too dry, like trying to suck sap out of a piece of driftwood. But you, Max. You’re the real deal, you’re not just a memory of Max Kael.. you’re his true lingering consciousness. Through you I can be real. Just.. think of all the chaos we could create..”

Leaning against the wall the Minister lets a playful smile hang on his lips. His voice drops into a breathy, seductive growl.

“And we can start..with Crash Jackson.”

Max’s lips curl into a sneer at the Minister’s mention of Crash. He bristles with barely contained, seething anger. A low snarl rattles past Max’s teeth, mimicked exactly by the Minister. 

“Fine” Max sneers. “I’m listening..”

-

CLASSIFICATION: SECRET

DATE: 18 June 2024

MEMORANDUM FOR: Comrade Alexei Ruslan

SUBJECT: Commissar Maximillian Wilhelm Kael (ДО - К36л)

Comrade Alexei Ruslan,

Success!

I am happy to report that Commissar Kael has made a miraculous recovery far beyond projected estimations. Two loyal techs lost their lives in an unrelated accident.

Tragic.

The tragedy is softened by the confirmation that Kael will be participating at Tropical Turmoil against the American, Crash. How fortunate the Red Army has someone participating at the event with a chance to win.

I noticed Ivan Stanislav is not listed. I hope your comrade doesn’t have gout. I understand that can be a problem as people get older and do less for the Motherland.

If the Commissar is successful, High Command is considering modernizing the Red Army with Kael as the blueprint. I don’t want to get your hopes up but I’m being told I am under consideration for heading such a project.

I look forward to your cooperation, Comrade Ruslan.

Cordially,

Colonel Ratimir Nekkshov ГРУ-19

- I did it, Jason. For you.  For me. For us.  I made you the Hero.  Call me Commissar Maximillian Wilhlem Kael. The RED Right Hand of Communism The Black HEART of PRIME I’m not your friend.  I’m the Villain.  ..heh-heh.. h̴̛̛̛͍̯̹̳͇̘̣͚̺̤̿̎̑̓̈́̈́̈́́̔̄̚͜ë̶̛̯́̍̅͌̒̈́̀̑͒̑̎̆͑͌̄̍h̴̢̛̛̫̹̗̞̏̏̂̃̓̆̎̂͂̇͝