========================================================================= Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 17:19:58 EST Reply-To: "#75 Brian MacKenzie: Flyers fan, Mentos Maintainer" Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "#75 Brian MacKenzie: Flyers fan, Mentos Maintainer" Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Subject: The MacKenzie Chronicles: Behind Blue Eyes, chapter 3/3 The MacKenzie Chronicles Behind Blue Eyes, part 3 (revised) by Brian Procopio, of the Clan MacKenzie Copyright 1996, Kaos Pictures, Inc. _______________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "No one knows what it's like To feel these feelings Like I do And I blame you No one bites back as hard On their anger None of my pain and woe Can show through But my dreams They aren't as empty As my conscience seems to be I have hours, only lonely My love is vengence That's never free...." _______________________________________________________________________________ Feburary 17, 1996 Swathmore, Pennsylvania ----------------------- With a shower of glittering sparks, David's katana crashed against the solid stone wall, millimeters away from where Cole's head had resided moments before. He quickly reversed several feet, avoiding the answering thrust from his opponent. As Gabriel recovered from his unblocked attack, he swung down with his rapier, hoping that the vertical movement would catch Macleod off guard. The young immortal dove and rolled to the side, dodging yet another attack. With a slight grunt he sprung to his feet again, and the two immortals circled each other warily. Without warning, Cole swung his weapon at Dave's sword arm, but the left- handed swordsman blocked the strike. Gabriel turned, pivoted, and attempted to spear the other with a side thrust kick, but David caught the invading boot with his free hand, and attempted to shove the elder warrior back. "I'm impressed," remarked Cole as he recovered in a back flip, landing effortlessly onto balanced feet. "MacKenzie must have taught you well." "I'm a quick learner," exclaimed David as he launched into an offensive. Slice, stab, slice, and *lunge*. As Cole blocked the final strike, Macleod spun his shoulder into him, hurling him back several feet. The sandy-haired warrior took David's overhead strike easily, diverting it's energy harmlessly to the side. He regained his footing in a spritely jump. "Oh I do so enjoy the challenge of fighting a left-handed swordsman like yourself, I really do...," he let loose a quick flurry of attacks, which the youngest Macleod immortal blocked before launching an offensive onslaught with a bellow. With reaching, sweeping swipes he pushed Cole back towards the far wing of the stage, both of them knocking over assorted bits of furniture and stage props in the process. Nearly out of room, the defensive combatant ducked and swung his blade low at Dave's kneecaps, forcing him to spring back a foot in order to avoid the crippling blow. In the respite, Cole spun and raced for the nearby stairwell. David followed cautiously up the dark steps, his katana held firmly be- fore him. Occaisionally the blade would capture the reflection of a stage light as he made his way out onto the suspended fly of the theater. He scanned the empty catwalk before him, and quickly glanced thirty feet down to the main stage far below. As he reverted his attention back to the narrow walkway, Cole twisted down from an open panel in the drop ceiling, catching the Scot solidly in the chest with both booted feet. Without giving up a moment's respite, he lept to his feet and struck with his blade. David rolled, just avoiding the sword's edge. He kicked out, catching Cole's leather-clad shins and driving him back, and then regained his footing on the walkway, which was beginning to teeter unsteadily. "You cannot win, Macleod," the older immortal hissed, tossing his blonde hair back from his eyes. "I'll always have one more trick up my sleeve!" With that, he scaled the safety rail and dove, spinning, twisting, until he came up on his feet with a not-so-soft thud. David placed one foot upon the rail, and then paused, the sounds of Gabriel's realigning and rapidly healing bones meet- ing his ears with a chorus of snaps and pops. He chose the more prudent stair- well instead, appeasing both his fear of being beheaded stupidly and his fear of heights in the same motion. His senses at full maximum, he made his way down, ears straining for the squeak of a booted foot's warning. When it came, he was barely able to catch it, the clanging of swords shattering the silence surrounding him. He utilized his advantage of higher ground to dive and tackle Cole from the steps, hoping to disarm his opponent, but to no avail. Gabriel, in full possession of his sword, lanced out at the prone Macleod, and he rolled away from the potentially decapitating strike. "This is, you realize," Cole lectured as they sqaured off again, "the moment in time when I relieve you of your miserable little existance that you call immortality and give your teacher yet ano--" "Shut up and fight." David glared coldly at his opponent. With a fake sigh, Gabriel complained, "You newbies take *all* the fun out of the Game, you really do..." "This isn't part of the game, Cole," breathed the younger immortal. Gabriel began to circle David slowly, watching the other warrior follow his movement out of the corner of his eyes. "Ohhh, but it is, David, don't you see that? This is *all* a part of the Game. Everything we do, how we live, it all effects who wins the Pri---." Cole caught David's spinning attack with his blade and a chuckle. "Who wins the Prize in the end," he finished. Macleod grimaced his features and drove forward with a frenzied, almost possessed, attack, his rage and battle fury seeping through into an explosion of energy as he battered Cole's defenses away. He forced him across the crowded stage, and an errant couch leg forced Cole to stumble onto his back- side. David's arms ached as they brought the weapon down, and overhead strike powerful enough to cleave the fallen warrior cleanly in two, had it connected. Instead, Gabriel tucked himself up and rolled back, slipping under the heavy velvet curtain that lined the back of the stage. With a groan, Dave finally tugged his katana free and immediately lunged it's point into the curtains. Silence. He hacked at the material, finally opening a hole in them. His scratched and nicked blade before him, he made his way behind the curtain, looking first left, than right, yet finding no sign of Cole. With a lurch, he cried in pain as the sword pierced his chest cavity and emerged bloodly from the front of his denim shirt. David's arms spasmed invol- untarily, his katana clattering to the ground beside him as he slumped to his knees, rolling out to the floor of the stage proper as the blade exited his body. "I told you I'd always have one more trick, Macleod," Cole stated tri- umphantly as he raised his sword high. "There can be on...." he paused, his awareness alerting him to the presence of another, the one that he sought. "Only one," finished Brian MacKenzie as he strided into the auditorium. "And it won't be you, Gabriel," he stated with a cold fury as he advanced, shedding and depositing his leather trenchcoat into the seats. The few lights in the building were reflected in the blade of his katana. "Ahhh, worthy game at last," grinned Cole as he turned a glance at the newcomer. "Mac...," David managed to grunt. "Leave, Mac... It's not your fight, remember? I don't care if.. if..." "Dave, leave. Now." MacKenzie's tone left little doubt at to the slim chances that protesting it would do any good. "It was my fight all along," he explained as he afixed Cole with a lifeless stare. His wounds beginning to tingle, Macleod half-stumbled, half-rolled from the theater, fearful of the look in his friend's eyes... _______________________________________________________________________________ "When my fist clenches, crack it open Before I use it and lose my cool When I smile, tell me some bad news Before I laugh and act like a fool And if I swallow anything evil Put your finger down my throat If I shiver, please give me a blanket Keep me warm, let me wear your coat..." _______________________________________________________________________________ -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Change of heart, MacKenzie?" I greeted the inquiry with silence. His face smiled in that cruel grin that he had. In that moment I knew that any doubts I had had about killing Gabriel Cole were erased. As his shoulders flexed slightly, he decided to go for a new tact. "Fit- ting, isn't it, Brian? To find us both here, on the stage? We've both spent much of our lives in places such as this, have we not?" He began to circle me, a certain hostility hanging in the air. "You, as an actor, I, as an acrobat, hmmm? The change in swords seems to be the only difference since our last spat. And now we come here again to replay the tradgedy of life and death? Will you be the Iago to my Othello, perhaps?" The grin lit his thin features once more. Odd, actually, how he and Ashley could have been born of the same stock. "The Brutus to your Caesar, perhaps," I responded quietly. Cole dove at me with a cloaked fury, and in an instant we were inches from each other's face, the grinding of blades keeping us apart. "No," he hissed," for Caesar and Brutus were once friends, while us...." He trailed off as he backed away from me, a slight shrug finishing his thought. He roared in anger as his offensive was launched. I felt detached, outside, an onserver, my blade catching his over and o- ver as my arm rose and fell without feeling, without sensation, just a cold burning deep down inside as his attacks fell away. One found its way through, I discovered that scar later, a line slicing across my left bicep. I do not remember it at the time. Finally he dove just a little too far, extending himself just so. I twisted to the side, spinning as I did so, Gabriel's head falling from its body in the process. It all seemed so effortless, so simple; a single sword stroke falling, a thin spray of deep deep red catching my clothing, and a dull thump as the body, devoid of life, slumped to the ground... I felt the sword drop from my numbing fingers, hearing only the roar of my heartbeat in my ears, and seeing the mystical trails of glowing blue-white fire tracing away from Cole's limp form. I turned to run, or tried to at the very least. The force of the quickening held me firmly rooted, not letting me escape the onslaught which awaited me. The blast wave echoed forth from my soul, dozens of overheads shattering in a cresendo of glass and sound as my lungs screamed in agony... Then the memories began to flow. My arms covered my head as I dropped it to the floor, trying to run, to hide, to deny them entrance. Fragments of glass wedged their way into my forearms as they pressed involuntarily into the stage, the first wisping thoughts of a foreign mind invading my own. Childhood in it's faint hazy fog of forgetfulness, glimpses of my Ashley as a young girl bringing tears to my eyes... a mirrored image of myself as I once was, the battle which we had begun so many centuries ago... The path which Gabriel followed over the years, the training, the deaths, and indeed the human qualities too, admiration of a finely-crafted sword; David's sword in fact... and the way that path followed my own, always keeping tabs, always preparing, always plotting; the sheer obsessive qualities scared me, made my mind revolt... I screamed, cried, howled, and more, an unhuman sound reaching out to whomever would listen as my soul tore in two, feeling his hands, my hands!! reaching behind Ashley, holding her neck bared, dragging the poorly-sharpened blade along its pale beauty.... I felt a touch of Gabriel's consciousness be- fore I lost my grip on my own, his perverse, sadistic pleasure at my pain... *I have won. In the end, I have won, for these memories will NEVER leave you, Brian, *never*....* I stood and watched my wife die, watching the leaves grow moist in her blood, and I knew my life was irrevocably changed for all eternity... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Feburary 23, 1996 Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania ------------------------- We sat in silence, David and I. Neither of us knew what to say, and neither of us was prepared to say it either. "Where?" he asked quietly, unable to meet my eyes, if I were to lift them to his. "New Jersey, one of the coastal towns for now. I have a house down there... does it matter?" I questioned. "Well...," he cleared his throat. I noticed that he hadn't shaved in several days at least, a good bit of scruffiness building about his chin. "I need to know what to pack..." "No," I answered, standing to leave. David stood as well, facing me. "I'm going as well, Brian. At least for three weeks or so... I can return to classes after spring break," he offered in the way of an explaination. Our eyes made contact, and we each knew that the other had changed. How much of our former friendship was still there we could not know. "Besides," Dave added before I could reply, "you need this." He pulled my katana out from under his coat, it's finish bearing several knicks and scratches, as well as a faint red stain. "You left it there, in the theater. I went back for it. Were you planning on leaving without it?" he questioned, his eyes meeting mine a- gain. Mine fell, unable to let him see the truth, to see how much I sought death, an end, a finish and a closing to the endless images which haunted me to no halt.... Wordlessly I turned and walked from the house, slinging my bag over one shoulder as Dave followed me. The drive was long, and quiet, save for the voice of a redhead I knew, once, in a former life.... _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Well, that ends this edition of Behind Blue Eyes. Be on the lookout for teh revised edition of Battle of Evermore coming your way soon. COMMENTS ALWAYS WELCOME ;) --brian