As though there were a thousand yards of distance to look through, Theo stared at the ceiling with a blank expression. Whatever that was going through his head, it surely wasn't the expectation that the Wannabe Savior would deny his plea.
{Hahahahaha! LMNOP! Yah gotta take me for a stool's leg if yah thought I'd stick mah thumb in a guillotine for ya.}
Theo didn't know whether to worry about the fact that the Wannabe Savior had used 'LMNOP' instead of 'LMAO' or what kind of metaphor he just used, but Theo knew the most worrying thing at the present was that he wasn't getting any help.
"Wasn't our whole contract thing about me giving you my prayer and you help me out or something?!"
{For one, the contract thing you're talking about was so I could link yur heart to mah fire axe. For two, I ain't owe you nuthin' to be asking me for favors like that. N' finally, I ain't even got the power to help you out here, bucko.}
"Aren't you like some eldritch God who's trying to trick me into fulfilling some evil quota for you so you can revive yourself and destroy the world?"
{The hell do you think I call mah self a Wannabe Savior for? And you watch too many flimsy dimsy TV shows, it fuels a dangerous romanticism about the world of Manifestors; in fact, you'll find yourself deep in a dark ol' hole if you keep thinking that way.}
"...are you stalking me inside my real life?"
The Wannabe Savior ignored Theo's question, {Trust me, favor or not, I can't help you here. Although I'm happy that you're feeding into the savior part of mah name, I have enough of an Ego to see the reality of things, which is that I don't have the power to help you whatsoever.}
"Then what the hell do I do?! I'm completely outmatched here!"
{Look, how about this? Since all I got are words to speak, I'll give yah a half-assed guide on how to do things. Hell, if you can grow a sack of balls through this, yah might even get a new power! Ha!}
"...reassuring, at the very least."
{That's what I wanna hear! Finally means we can finally start fighting the guy behind you! Golly, it's awfully rude to keep a man waiting, Theo, especially if he was waiting for you to finish your self-talk.}
"...what?" Theo spoke with a hint of oblivion to his voice, turning around to see a battered soldier who had lost all of his orange luster, patiently waiting for him to deal with whatever robot schizophrenia the soldier thought Theo to have.
{He's been there for a couple minutes now.}
Theo said in a whisper, "Why the hell didn't you tell me?! No, more importantly, how did he get pass those doors without a single sound?!"
{'Cause we were having a conversation, duh. Plus, those doors were locked using waves, and with all energy being forwarded to whatever conglomerate of power this laboratory is making, there's simply nothing left for those doors to even function.}
Theo, with a half-bewildered and half-nerved in his eyes, made a stare down with the soldier.
{First, since that Carmina can't be your brain for the fight, know the situation---the enemy before you is an incredibly experienced combat veteran and lethal in most forms of combat, but is clearly exhausted and out of all that orange juice that makes him strong.}
The Wannabe Savior took a moment to analyze Theo from whatever imaginary space he was held within.
{You, on the other hand, have phenomenal defense and weight compared to the soldier in front of you, considering your robotic body. You also have a lot more range with your fire axe and can deal devastating damage with one hit, in turn for your inexperience and predictable/slow attacks.}
"Which means I should make it a war of attrition? Or, you know, a fight of attrition, kinda like a super downplayed version of it."
{Yes, you should. Turn it into a waiting game, but not much as just play defensive all the time, use yur unlimited stamina to constantly put pressure on him. Also, I ain't no knuckle skull when it comes to academics.}
"Using 'ain't' and 'no' in the same sentence is a double negative, which is the opposite of what you're trying to mean."
{Sonuva bitch. What's the cotangent of 270 degrees?}
"Is... is that trigonometry? Dude, I'm only in algebra two right now."
{The answer was 0, yah dumb muck. Now get in a stance and get to ass kickin' before that squeezed orange pulp gets any smart ideas.}
The soldier, more or less acknowledging the fact that Theo was done with is schizophrenia, took a stance with his dagger.
In return, Theo summoned his own fire axe to prepare for combat.
"Thanks for waiting for my, uh, schizophrenia to work itself out. Are you one of those stereotypes that want some honorable fight before they die?"
The soldier took a moment to think, "Can't meet the eyes of my commander if I go out tryna prove my strength using some underhanded tactic."
"Awfully nihilistic to be assuming with me that you'll be one dying after this fight, yea?"
"...it is what it is, and by completing this mission, it'll be the same as living out what I've been set out to do. And so, loss or win, I'll be dying after this battle."
"Well then, let's get to thrashing and stabbing!" Theo yelled, taking a stance to prepare for whatever was about to come his way.
"Woah, before that, I want the name of my venerable opponent in this finale of mine. Ryker is mine, what's yours?"
{...Theo, start chopping away right fuckin' now.}
"Huh? What?"
"Zackery. That's my---"
{START FUCKIN' KILLING HIM! HE'S PLAYING THE GOD DAMN WAITING GAME AS WELL! HE'S WAITING FOR SOMETHIN' REAL FUCKIN' DANGEROUS TO KILL YA WITH!} The Wannabe Savior roared inside Theo's head, pushing him into incredible urgency.
In a predetermined plan of action, Theo swung his fire axe against the floor and towards Ryker, grinding its edge against the hard flooring and shooting forth a blinding amount of fiery sparks forward.
Ryker, having no expectations for a surprise attack considering how well their conversation was going, could only swipe at the volley of fiery sparks, feeling a small but sudden drop in temperature from inside his suit.
Quick to use the valuable moment, Theo used the momentum of his initial swing to spin around and slash at the Ryker's side, but he had well-adapted to the situation already.
With swift eyes, he had deflected the fire axe over his head despite how much Ryker's sight had been blocked and shot forth his dagger in a counterattack at where would be Theo's power core.
The damage was, of course, minimal, with more harm being done to Ryker's wrist than anything else for trying to stab at metal.
Knowing of the sheer disadvantage he had in a fight with Theo, Ryker quickly tried to make distance between each other. But with the Wannabe Savior's advice, Theo gave Ryker no time to breathe as he rushed in for another attack.
Already exhausted from his horrible fight with Mix n' Mismatch, Ryker didn't want to waste another breath trying to avoid it and tried to block Theo's swing with his forearm.
It was a horrible mistake for him however, as it was now that Ryker could actually process the full effect of Theo's fire axe and why it had such a chilling aftermath with the sparks it had created.
Upon contact with the edge of fire axe, even if it was so much as a nick inside his suit of armor, Ryker felt a spiky numbness that felt both hot and cold at the same time, as though there wasn't a difference between the two in the first place once feeling their extremes.
"Gck!" Ryker grunted, immediately taking action to take hold of the fire axe's hilt and kick Theo away, effectively disarming him as Ryker threw it far from anyones reach
Instinctively, Ryker knew that trying to wield such a bizarre weapon in his hands for long would imitate the same effects of getting cut by it, especially when a smoke of ash was flying up from his hands.
{Forget the fire axe! You can summon it later! Don't let him rest for another second! Show 'em a real match of fisticuffs! Blunt damage would be more detrimental to him anyways.}
Heeding the advice of the Wannabe Savior, Theo had recovered the little distance Ryker put in-between them and pressured him once again, running in to shove him against the wall.
Theo stepped back and followed it up with a shoulder bash, punching Ryker as he rebounded from the wall. Then, to really ensure his brutality, Theo grabbed Ryker by the neck to both slam and drag his face into Vint's desk repeatedly without stop.
{Nice going! Now bring him to the ground n' finish him off with a quick smash to his head!} The Wannabe Savior cheered with fervency.
And so, to appease his one and only audience, Theo threw Ryker down to the ground and sat on his chest, balling his fists up to make sure that Ryker wouldn't be getting up without a brain hemorrhage.
Slam!
The weight of metal paired with the force put behind it with Theo's mechanical inner workings made for a devastating blow.
Bam!
With Ryker's more-than-durable helmet, it had helped him not turn into brain paste with the first hit, but just as Newton's cradle can transfer kinetic energy through its pendulums, the force behind each slamming were still connecting to Ryker's brain no matter how much force was being absorbed by both his helmet and his skull.
{Agh! Too slow! Just summon your fire axe and burn off his body already!}
"I thought you said to finish him off with a bashing to his head?"
{Yea, well, best pray that whatever he's waiting for, it isn't a damn bomb! Now get to slashing or you'll be digging your grave!}
"Okay, damn." Theo gave up any argument against the Wannabe Savior, standing up to try to summon his fire axe.
{You're mentally exhausted from using that fire axe all week long. Yah can't focus yourself hard enough to summon it easy peasy. Just say the name of the ID weapon and be over with it.}
"...Answer To The Ashen."
A fire axe came to be in Theo's hand.
And so, with a conclusion close to come, Theo raised his fire axe high above his head and trained his weirdly dazed eyes to measure where he needed to attack.
"Nice knowing ya, I guess."
Theo brought down his fire axe without another second to reconsider or hesitate, lodging itself inside the hard flooring as Ryker weaved his head into an open space.
"Wha---" Theo exclaimed from surprise, knowing full well that whatever damage Ryker had sustained was enough to give a normal person enough concussions to last a lifetime if it hadn't turned to smush beforehand.
But, just as the hyphens emphasized an abrupt end to Theo's sentence, Ryker's right arm, having been holding onto his dagger all this time, suddenly began beaming with orange light as he shot it deep inside Theo's torso, cutting through all the hard metal as though it were butter.
It wasn't just a desperate attack that spurred out of nowhere as the moment Theo had sustained the injury, he knew it had it something incredibly vital to the function of his body, paralyzing all of his limbs as he fell onto Ryker's body.
"Ugh, I was hoping to wait out for some more energy..." Ryker complained, weakly pushing the now-limp Theo off of his body.
Crawling to a nearby office chair that had been spared from the chaos, Ryker climbed it with great difficulty and took the sweetest breaths of air he had ever inhaled inside his life, exhaustingly leaning into it as he threw off his helmet.
Just as anyone could expect, the sight of a normal human certainly wasn't beneath Ryker's helmet as augmentations ran deep into his face, though biological flesh could still be seen.
From laser red eyes to intricacies of steel, just from a glance at his face, Ryker was the definition of a cyborg.
After another breath of sweet air filling his lungs to their capacity, Ryker used his legs to drag himself to the supercomputer on his office chair, sparing no time for another break as he began typing a series of commands into the keyboard.
'What . . . happened?'
{Beat ya to the punch, that's what happened. The fella's waiting game paid him off, tryna juice up on all the orange that he could before stabbing ya deep.}
'It can't... it can't end like this! I was so close! Like, five percent close!'
{Seven percent away, actually, when rounded down. Time really goes flyin' when you're in the heat of battle, eh? Well, sorry to say, but your little scuffle only lasted a solid minute or so. You were nowhere close, and you know full well that it wouldn't be another ten minutes until that damn thing fills to full. By then, that Ryker guy is sure to be done.}
'What do I even do, then?! Twiddle my thumbs as Luna and Vint watch their dreams go down a fucking drain!?"
{Yup, just doing nuthin' but breathe out your last breaths. I mean, what are yah even gonna do? You're essentially crippled here and there's no amount of mental illness that can pull ya back up here.}
The Wannabe Savior took a moment for his words to sink it, breathing in whatever stick of ash he was smoking in his ashen world and then coughing it out.
{Look, I know you like the butt of my cigarette. You wanna be some do-it-all hero schmuck you've always dreamed of being, eh? Miss once-been angel told you all the bedtime stories that you romanticize about with just the greatest hint of narcissism!}
'What... what are you---'
{Don't go toochy poochy brain on me, youngin'! I know all about your inner monologues! All that brain talk about being 'normal' and 'burnout' could kill a man, yah know! Hell, I am the physical, living example of what a burnout is! I'm burnt out to a crisp! And you wanna play around with that idea like it's so willy nilly like that?!
Kid, let me tell ya that trying to be some run-of-the-mill superhero ain't gonna cut you the checks you need to pay you up and good as a Manifestor. Dreams stay as dreams because it's always just a fickle idealism of reality. Sadder it could be knowing that the highest level of happiness you can imagine is just a delusion staled to be a delusion.
It sucks, yes, to try to accept every bit of foundation you've founded yourself upon will never be met to its standards, but that makes it all the more valuable to know now so you can rebuild it stronger than ever.
In a world banished from some outer force of fate, you have to take responsibility for yourself and right now, it means you need to take responsibility to grow as a person.}
Theo laid unmoving, though irreverent to the hard blow he had taken from the Wannabe Savior's words.
Though it wasn't known whether it was because his words had touched and punched something deep inside Theo or whether it was the heartache that came from the cold, hard facts of reality, but the weight of the Wannabe Savior's word had hit harder than a sack of bricks.
It was something to come to such a conclusion by himself, but to be told upright that there was no hope for a comeback after coming so close to success was entirely different; it was like a comparison between standing in a sauna to just being lit aflame with hellfire.
Was Theo really such a romanticist with his solitude? Someone mentally ill enough to delude the grandeurs of horror and slaughter?
He couldn't, it was impossible for Theo to---
{Agh, shit, you're doing it again! Thinking in some tongue of Shakespeare like you wanna be some coming-of-age teenager philosopher! You're almost on the same level as the people who think their arms a big black fuckin' dragon!}
An imaginary shiver ran down Theo's mechanical spine as the thought of being similar to someone with 8th grade syndrome.
{Look, kid, yah don't need an entire inner monologue to come to a decision. No matter what kinda thought you try to put in, as a Manifestor, the options don't start poppin' up like popcorn. The decision will still be made, and when yah can't properly weight the scales, then you gotta take some things for granted...
...the spiral doesn't spin left or right, deeper inward or larger outward, you're just staring at a flat image. There's only now in time, and it's better used doing shit than staring at a circle with Down syndrome.}
'...'
Theo took a moment trying to assimilate the message the Wannabe Savior had told him, a kindling flame that had once seeded itself in the barren cold began to spread its roots.
'Then... then...' Theo felt an burning passion slowly overwhelm his body in that very moment as he tried to find the words of his belief, '...I would rather die having tried than to crawl up in a pit of pissy petty!'
The Wannabe Savior's eyes glistening with dazzle as he looked forth from his ashen tree stump that he leaned up, particles of ember sparkling its dim warmth behind all the ash.
'Yea, you're right! What the fuck am I doing trying to make with a retardation's worth of a God damn monologue?! I don't need all this shit to reason the fuck I wanna do! I do this shit because I wanna help people! Because I got someone to look up to! Because I wanna be just like her! Because I have values I wanna fucking---' Theo took a moment to correct himself, '---fudging follow through here!'
The kindling flame that had considerably rooted itself into the impassioned zeals of Theo's mind had begun to grow its buds, though that was about it.
Without the sun, the lakes, or the air to support and satisfy its basic needs, a flower can never bloom into all of the beauty it can behold. The same sentiment holds the same for Theo as growth without the environment to foster such growth can only die out.
With half of Theo's most important inner mechanisms having been slashed off, there was no action he could take to follow through with his newfound ardor...
...and such a thing would be akin to blasphemy for the Wannabe Savior if he didn't try to save the cinders of a soon-to-be dying fire like this one.; in fact, it was his duty to keep that very flame going if he ever wanted to fulfill his role.
{Well, kick me a pretty penny to buy me a new hatchet, cause I can't just sit around after listening to that! Well, I can, but nevertheless! I gotta keep your flame runnin' and goin', so you need to listen up real quick n' fast, kid split!}
'H-Huh? Yea, alright!'
{Let me tell you up n' now is that who you are as an individual is beyond the function of flesh. As you know, the three basics of a Manifestor are your Name, your Soul, and your Faith, all representing key factors of who you are as a person.
Right now, you are only using one of those three essential factors, that being your Name, or rather, your ID weapon.}
'What's wrong with only using my ID weapon? Carmina is entirely reliant on her ID weapon to fight.'
{That's because that young lass has had tons of time to explore all of her other options, while you haven't! Plus, there's affinities for these kind of things---
People who are more self-centered for their character are more tuned in for being Cognomen.
People who are more focused on personal philosophies and experiences are more likely to be Incarnates
And people who are more religious and/or set on their morals are in line to being Proselytizers.}
'...and who am I?'
{By my professional opinion, you're suited to be a Proselytizer. You only started off with your ID weapon due to unfortunate circumstances, that mainly your egocentric view on 'normality' and the what not, but other factors play in as well, like me tethering your Name to your Faith.}
'Then... how do I become a Proselytizer? How do I use my Faith?!'
{Simple, really, you have to believe in yourself, but not in the way of those shitty Disney morals always presents it so. You need to pray, Theo, one that only you can answer, one you can resolute into words harder than steel...
...you must clasp your hands tight and light your hands aflame, for your heart must blaze to fuel your dreams, your wishes, your prayers.}
'And how the hell am I suppose to---' Theo thought his response to the Wannabe Savior's maddening rant, having started off as somewhat meaningful advice to something so utterly abstract that it could no longer be apart of a thinking process.
But the Wannabe Savior's words didn't need to have meaning for Theo to have any effect, as mere moments after his mutterings, all visual and auditory information had been blocked.
Theo knew he was still lying on the floor from the bizarre sense of touch he has with his robotic fingertips, although he could never dare to come close to trying to explain such a bizarre phenomenon.
{This is what I mean by you, as an individual, being beyond the function of your flesh---this is your soul at play, Theo.
As the saying goes, 'eyes are windows to the soul,' which is what best represents what your soul really is. It's an ethereal-like organ that's intangible with the world without the use of waves and the soul is in charge of processing your senses into memories and your memories into individuality.
All that mouth spew from that moon lass about advanced technology? It's bullshit, your model is tens of years out of the times to be having that kind of innovation in your body.
But we're getting off topic here, what do you see in front of you?}
Theo, being stuck in a perpetual void of black with all of his visual information being blocked, tried to squint really hard as though he was actually using his eyes.
{I worded that wrong, what do you currently sense in front of you?}
"Do words just have the power to---" Theo surprised himself with the sudden reverberation of his words, "---woah! What the hell?"
{As of right now, you're inside of your own subconscious, in which every single one of your thoughts are automatically done and said. There's no process or luxury to think before you speak because the thought itself is what speaks.}
"Really? All thoughts? I thought the subconscious would be literal hellscape of sound and chaos with how much it deals with on a daily basis, like memory management or making up our creative imagination."
{They are there, those little ideas that roam around your mind. That being said, why can't you hear those random thoughts?}
"I don't know, is the subconscious among the things the Soul can sense? If so, I'm probably too weak to hear it or something."
{Technically, yes, but not in your kind of context. One of the key facts about being a Manifestor is knowing that everything produces a wave, and that includes thoughts. You're not too weak to hear them, it's just that you're too weak by comparison to another particular thought running inside your head, producing a frequency of waves that override any attempt for your Soul to produce a wave strong enough to resonate with another thought.}
"...would that be the mysterious epiphany I was having a couple minutes ago?"
{No, that would mean that the epiphany you reached had already ended, which is very much still occurring. But you are right, that's the wave source strong enough to override any other thought's wave signal from reaching you.}
"But if I'm still ranting on about, uh, whatever, what the hell am I doing here?!"
{So you do know that you're ranting! I've been hearing that kind of shit for so long that I could go legally deaf from it! But this kind of rant is particularly important, so I'll let it go. And to explain your phenomenon, you're among those rogue thought roaming around your subconscious.
Right now, I can't pull the you that's having their epiphany, or else I risk fucking it all up and kill off most of the potential growth you can get. And so, because I also can't just leave you alone, I needed to split a small part of you into something I can use.}
"Not to sound dumb, but what happens if I am left alone? What prevents me from... just growing?"
{You do sound dumb. Right now, no matter what kind of momentum you're building for yourself right now, it's all going to waste if you can't follow through with that momentum. It's like finally getting the motivation to go to the gym, but only when it's 3 AM at night.
Your job here is to instill your prayer into your heart. Not to me, not to some eldritch fortune teller, but yourself. You need a prayer only you can answer, a prayer you realize for yourself, a prayer you can put faith behind.}
"...so, uh, any tips on that 'sense' thing I need to do?"
{You feel those domineering waves of Faith passing through your body, yes? Focus on them, Theo, and look towards its origin.}
"Yea, like, the fudge? How in God's name is that suppose to---" Theo felt a force push through his being, "---welp, damn, that's one hell of a convenience words can do. Why don't you narrate my job for me? That sounded sarcastic. I meant literally, in case of confusion, because I'm every swirl of confusion I could get here."
{It's the power of suggestion, Theo, you were always capable of doing such a thing. All it takes is the possibility of a course of action for you to mold into before it comes to reality. And no, I'm not a narrator, I can't do that.}
Nonetheless, Theo felt and continued to feel the waves push through his body.
Like the tides of the ocean, he could feel a slow but undeterred force 'shove' against Theo's being, a singing heat carried through the waves giving him a bit more courage to do his job.
In whatever context the word 'turned' meant in such an abstract space, Theo tried to do so towards the source of the waves. It was like trying to twist your body in space, but more or less without the physicality aspect of it.
But Theo failed to 'turn' towards the source, with every meaning of nothing happening applying itself to the situation.
{No, no, what the hell are you trying to do in a conceptual location like this? There's no directory to your senses or any kind of direction in the first place. For the most part, you don't turn your ears whenever you hear a sound, do you? Because you'd be an alien if you did. Focus, Theo, that's all you need.}
"Why the hell do I supposedly have everything that I need to do the thing I need to do but can't do it because of whatever the fudge? Like, you've already said to focus, so wouldn't that mean that---"
It worked, just as the Wannabe Savior had intended it to work.
Suddenly standing, or rather, suddenly being in front of him was a network of fiery roots that branched into a thousand more as they grew to fill the very confines of Theo's subconscious, who had stopped any form of thinking to try to assimilate the overload of sensory information.
Stemming from many, if not all of the roots were premature flower buds that stood at the very edge of blooming, though stiff with an unnatural halt of growth.
Theo focused his senses towards the mysterious plant life, feeling a pulse within the roots as he traced the roots opposite to the direction the pulsed and found a beating orb set as its centerpiece, far too bright to hold an actual shape other than an orb.
{That's not just a 'bright orb,' Theo, it's the heart; your origin of Faith, even. Those supposed roots you've sensed? They're the arteries and veins of that heart, made to spread its influence throughout your body.}
Theo 'observed' the beating heart, each thump it pounded out producing a rippling wave of warming courage that could overwhelm him if he didn't steel himself.
"...why does it beat so slowly?"
{Because it doesn't have a proper prayer to drive its faith. The heart can only thump so strenuously without such a key component to function. That brings us to your mission, which is to pray and fuel its pulse. You're its lifeline, Theo, and vice versa.}
With as much as a frown as he could muster on his nonexistent face, Theo said, "It's... difficult, kind of, trying to find the right words for my prayer."
{Why? You know what you want to do. You want to save people, Theo!}
"Yea, I know that, but... I don't know, it's kinda grandiose for me to take it all at once. It's a commitment to a set of morals, an oath to uphold my dreams no matter the horrors that stand before me. But, nevertheless, I know what to do and I know what I want to do. I won't hold myself down because of my worries of the future. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional."
{Haha, that's some good spirit to have in you. Your Faith is really rooting itself inside you now, isn't it? All yah gotta do is pray, no need for the ritualistic complements and nonsensical eloquence of clasped hands and kneeled knees, but they do help a lot.}
A quick 'breath' in and a quick 'breath out,' and Theo toughened himself to pray.
But as Theo opened his 'mouth' to speak, the pulsing waves produced from the heart had suddenly spike in power.
"Ack! What the hell?!"
{After such a long time of being starved of good ol' Faith, a single thought of prayer would fuel it; no, the mere sentiment of a prayer would light it up. Steel yourself once more, Theo, and finally conclude your prayer.
Another thought of resiliency shaped Theo's mental state to a steel-like consistency and began his prayer once more, although this time, more prepared to withstand the waves of courage and determination.
Theo shaped his 'mouth' to utter the first words of his prayer, speaking them with a particular strain that held their meaning back from their true definition.
"I want to... save people...!"
{There isn't enough Faith behind those words, Theo! Your flimsy choice of vocabulary isn't what represents you best, you gotta say it like you mean it!}
A grit of mind was made as Theo braced himself for another wave of hear to push him back, although without the physical space for that force to even apply the words 'push' to Theo, all it did was make consume his mental state with determination.
Theo looked for words that better fit his definition of himself, his years in English giving no avail to Theo's current situation.
"I want to be... just like her...! To be a savior!"
{Not good enough! You contradict the very word of 'resolute' if you're gonna be that flimsy with your words!}
"I want to be a savior! The one that brings smiles to other people in times of need!"
{That's not enough, Theo! You spew your prayer like it's shit straight from the toilet bowl!}
The beat of the heart grew stronger with the meager sparks of Theo's prayers, regardless of how minimal-of-heart was given in thought to his dreams, each pulse slowly overwhelming Theo's form of thought he beheld inside his conscious.
"Urgh...! What the hell am I missing?!"
{Speak from your heart, Theo, and speak those words to your actual heart! There's only you here, Theo, not including me but I'm irrelevant to the situation at hand. You already know your bullshit, it's useless to lie. Know yourself, Theo, and pray to that very ideality.}
Theo crashed and crossed together every thought he could muster, though every ramming and intersecting notion were all useless to him, destroying each other until every idea had been demolished and leaving nothing but himself to be...
...remembering of his wonderful rabbit Missus back at home.
"I want to be the star..."
{Huh? What was that, yah punk?!}
"I said! I want to be! The star! The inextinguishable blaze! The arriving hero! The bastard under That's who I want to be! No, that's who I pray to be! I wanna be...
...I Wannabe the damn Savior!"
The Wannabe Savior made a big, toothy grin as he scratched at his charred-black skin, blowing out clouds of ash from his dry, sore throat.
{That's right, honesty is always good to have with yourself. You may lay down now, Theo, the hard part is over and the rest can be handled with ease.}
Acknowledging those very words, Theo breathed a conceptual sigh of relief and let himself become overrun with the unstoppable pulse of his heart, washing away in the waves of Faith as his form dissipated into particles of thought.
Now, all that reigned free in Theo's conscious being was his beating heart and the Wannabe Savior, crossing over from his ashen world to gaze upon its brilliant orange as he beheld the view inside his eyes upon a pedestal of marble and glass.
Dying flower buds bloomed petals of fiery hands as motes of burnt orange shot forth like pollen; the sight being reminiscent of countless fireflies in a dark forest.
The vein-like roots exploded in every direction possible found possible inside Theo's mental landscape, circulating fiery Faith throughout his body as though it was making another cardiovascular system for Theo to live with.
Observing this phenomenal sight was the Wannabe Savior, standing as though he was just soaking his feet on the beach. In a very, very, very long time, the Wannabe Savior was finally feeling the cindering flames reawaken through his body.
Running the end of his cigarette against the pulsating waves of Theo's heart, the Wannabe Savior lit it aflame and smoked as much as could before it, too, engulfed his being in its warmth.
Then, leaving nothing but the ashen remains of the laboratory, Theo's blooming heart exploded into flames that well-exceeded 100% of that oh-so-desired progress bar.