Blue Pangea was a place that would be regarded as pure fantasy by the inhabitants of its former times. However, hundreds of years of an alien influence had transmogrified the globe stained in various blues at its very core.
First, the influence of the strange powers. These various energies had caused a world with a name lost within the jowls of beasts to expand tremendously, new landmasses popping out from the turbulent bodies of water.
Particularities formed within a select few of the inhabitants, as if the wills of the many had collectively wished for a way for humans and even the few other races to defend themselves.
The Carbuncles, the rifts that ferried the Discharge, seemed to refine the very existence of this planet. The blues it was covered in had become much more intense and varied, like a mish-mashed set of new coatings on an even newer car.
Materials became rich with strange power, and wealth was abound. This was both good and bad, since it stoked the desires of the races native to Blue Pangea. Carbuncles, which are theorized to at least be mainly composed of and thrive off of desires of luxury and hedonism, basked in the newfound and improved greed that dripped down fixated eyes and drooling maws.
Those with the strange power weren't immune to their corruption. Those with and without the power fought and killed, giving birth to many desires. The foreign invasion of these numerous rifts intensified as time went on.
Unknowingly, celestial bodies gestated and surrounded Blue Pangea. These were the Rims, a term coined by the survivors of many catastrophes.
The Discharge that was content in their little hovels rushed out of their Carbuncles and took the world by storm. All of this poisonous desire fed them, groomed them, raised them! The Carbuncles radiated invisible fluctuations that, when resonating with the many Rims looming behind the far-off blue atmosphere, would erupt and spew forth stronger influences coupled with the monsters housed within its wealth-influenced den.
These events were dubbed the Rim Disasters, as they only occurred when a Carbuncle resonated with a Rim's frequency. Discharge laid siege on the terrain of Blue Pangea, leaving more and more strange power that seeped into the very earth in their wake.
And reaping many lives that had just exploded in number.
The terrain was influenced by their natural fluctuations, many landmasses claimed by their uninhibited advances. The very fibers of the area would become dangerous toxins that snuffed out many more lives, and the few Discharge killed simply intensified this Carbuncle Radiation, as it was coined.
These places were known as Fierce Areas or Reclamation Zones. Sentient races, which were mainly humanity, fought hard with their Strangers. And technology advanced by heaps and bounds as people began to harness the strange powers in Blue Pangea.
Repressor Pins were invented and developed, allowing resistance at varying levels of the radiation that threatened to engulf the whole planet. Of course, Strangers had no need of this, which was why they were almost seen as foreign entities...but they began wearing them as the technology progressed and developed helpful functions.
The Discharge that distorted and changed the terrains they had taken in seemingly random ways were being beaten back. But...that was when another tragedy reared its foul head.
From the Carbuncles, they stepped out onto the world with sentient eyes and powerful bodies. The Precious Lordes, the Discharge with souls. They organized their fellow Discharge, changing it from a simple monster tide to a burgeoning military power.
Many sacrifices were made to beat back most of the Precious Lordes, forcing them within their Carbuncles. But unlike your average mortal, death was not their end. New bodies, refreshed minds, they kept stepping from the Carbuncles.
Those that wished to end the rifts were met with a stark new reality. This was the way their lives would be from now on, how it will be for those that survive down the line.
Fight. Fight. Struggle and strive, and prove you deserve to exist.
...Life wouldn't be this simple!
The Rims that were a significant pox on their entire lives had an even stronger card up their sleeves. These were destroyers who sought not to influence or invade.
The Rim's Ends of Luxury.
They were massive or powerfully condensed Discharge that lurked upon the Rims' surfaces. The few brave men and women who sought to colonize space for the survival of their species were effortlessly crushed by these transcendent monstrosities.
They slowly yet surely paved bridges in the forms of towers from the Rims to Blue Pangea, coined as Jackpots. Then, with their colossal steps, they advanced, stepping on the air as if a floor was always underneath them.
The succession of multiple Rim Disasters was their generation's cause, and the simple desire to terminate was laced within their genes. They sunk and destroyed many landmasses before rising trailblazers finally killed them.
The many people left needed a place to live.
This was the cause of many Floating, Buoyed, and Holy cities. In places thought inhabitable, in the sky, in the abundant bodies of water...the inhabitants found a way to live.
And thrive.
The more their lives improved, the faster their unity decayed. Then, as if the Carbuncles had appeared anew, many forces fostered their power and contested with one another again. The only agreed-upon power that held the riffraff together was a novel force, the International Convene.
Composed of at least one representative from each recognized force or nation, the many houses gathered to decide upon matters that were fundamental to the continued survival of those native to Blue Pangea.
Requirements were made to create new Cities. An international currency, the Lapin, was coined. Scientists, Strangers, and even magicians gathered to research and explore the many new possibilities.
This was the world that Walker and his little brother, Edward, were born in. They were the Viceroys, a name that held power and meaning to those of Blue Pangea.
For they had wealth and power handed down from their forbearers. Though hereditary passing down of Particularities was rare, the Viceroys were a family that had a recorded 100% transmission rate.
Well, that's what the big wide world knows. But, to tell the truth, no one knew of Walker's existence, for he was an exception that besmirched the 100%.
When his brother was born when he was at the age of six, they confirmed that Walker was an anomaly once again. Edward had the family's Particularity, while Walker was an outcast unfit to live up to his ancestral name.
A pathetic whelp. A child that should not even have been born. A vindictive demon that stomped upon the wealth of the family.
His relatives had referred to him as such up until their graves. At the age of twelve, he was in the shadows as only his brother was allowed to attend the funeral.
Many forces plotted with pleasant smiles and lies seeping from their teeth. Edward couldn't defend himself as forces began to chip away at the Viceroy's lands and fortune, and his elder brother, that calmly patted his shoulder when he cried, was strangely eerie.
Walker had a Particularity, one that was never acknowledged nor announced. However, if you saw the words in his mind at the time, he would describe it as a "very fucked up shit-gift."
The Stained Ginnead. A flower that blossomed within the boy, tainted with the atrocities hurled at him by his beloved relatives, marred with his despair and resentment, contaminated with his helplessness.
Looking at those hungry faces, all of this accumulation burst within the darkness hidden by cheshire curtains atop a high balcony. The Stained Ginnead had bloomed.
The description of it went as such.
A flower bloomed at the center of his very being, producing what were originally very pure purple flames, the colors of his eyes. This Ginnead that had stewed in hatred was known as the flower of atonement at first, which fostered righteous actions as power.
But adapting to its one and only host and creator, who was deemed a demon...it became a flower with the meaning of bearing atonement. The more atonement it had to bear, the more powerful Walker became.
He was reborn as a demon drenched in sin that coated him in red lacquer. Amidst the reeking heap of bodies, he had committed himself down a path he could never return from.
Walker became callous, capricious, and wily. Because no one knew of his existence, he became the unseen hand looming over the remaining properties of the Viceroys.
Even this unruly boy had rules, though. He killed those who got in his way and avoided the blame falling on his brother. He stayed up all night, inventing new identities that would prevent others from linking his actions to the Viceroy name.
Soon, even those that had no relation with the Viceroys were but fodder to grow in the weight of sins his Stained Ginnead fed upon. Many abilities were gained as the outer petals were stained black, and the inner purples were a collection of various darkening shades.
The sins Walker chose to bear were those of murder, and he restrained most of his targets to assassinations. He wasn't a good man, but he was one that concocted many plans to keep his one and only family safe.
It led him to become the number 2 unseen Black Stranger, those that were the most powerful in Blue Pangea's very own societal underworld.
With his accrued wealth and hidden identity, he formed a Floating City, creating his title as The Demon of Norheim, which is the City's name, and setting up a place to serve as a lure for the pesky flies who wished to snoop into his background.
While his brother created and pursued new ventures, not knowing anything of Walker's second life...he polished his skills as an assassin with many commissions and sessions of looting information. He was a prodigy that could be considered one of the greatest of untapped talents, as he rigorously trained and instructed himself with myriads of innovations.
The way forward was paved with bodies. Walker treaded this highway of deceased lives with grim determination, feeling like a dog scrambling in the trash for scraps. All of it was to survive; all of it was to allow his brother to survive.
But he held no illusion towards his nature. Ends justifying means? Ridiculous. He did what he had to, and he did what he wanted. Before the question of whether he was just was the question of whether he acted in a manner befitting his own self.
This is a summary of who Walker was and is. A man unerring before the consequences, come what may.
As he told this to Teret, he wanted to justify not himself but the burgeoning identity of the skeleton. Hidden in his words was the implication of making your own decisions about what you will and won't do.
Instilled in his words was the message to survive, to thrive, to keep growing. Even if you must live in shadows, it's better than dying...
Right or wrong? That depends on the context. Walker believed that the skeleton was an innocent and naive kid. That kind of pure existence...
Would be swallowed up by those hungry sharks both in and out of Everything is Bury in a single gulp. But, since he decided that Teret was his apprentice, he would not allow him to be played to their proclivities.
Whatever Teret did, it would be what he himself wanted to do. This was the only thing Walker could promise, as a human being who willingly became the demon he was despised as.
Mara...was shocked. Knowing nothing of the current world Everything is Bury appeared in, this was the first time she had ever heard of such a story. As an intelligent person, though she could not agree with every message Walker portrayed...
She nodded in approval. This was a man she could trust her child to. The path ahead is a long road lined with so many regrets she could hardly even process the number of them.
But if Teret could enjoy the "life" he was granted, especially with as few regrets as possible...she can't say she wouldn't be satisfied with this.
In the distance, minty eyes flickered behind a veil of miasma.