The Boy Who Burned the World-03

Chester Lame disappeared from history after that night, presumed killed by the arsonist that burned his foster home to the ground with everyone lost. He was not mourned. He was not missed. No one who knew of him cared that he wasn't around anymore. They turned their attention to the pretty people, the popular people, the puppies and the kitties, that burned and screamed and cried and died that night. They did not care about the poor, the ugly, the unloved, the underclass or anyone else of contempt. Chester Lame, being all of those things, slipped from the minds of the survivors with speed and aplomb.

Not that he cared. Chester changed patrons, now mastering powers unknown to most and unbelieved by most that did know, in a hidden place forgotten by the modern world he hated and despised--but, wisely, monitored closely--and he consorted with entities all in a firm hierarchy that knew their place. Chester was no fool; he knew his new patron sought to groom him as much as his old one did, but nonetheless revealed in the attention given to him- the powers introduced to him, taught to him, and urged to master by his inhuman patron intoxicated him.

Chester took to these lessons with an eagerness he never knew before. The proof of real power, power without tools or reliance upon others, was so compelling that he became obsessed with mastery of this power and applying it to the world he so despised. It was not long before he did so, and he did so with the deformed flesh of old as much a forgotten past as his original name. Chester Lame died in the fires of that night; Maximillian Reinhardt, Lord Cygnus, arose in Chester's place. And it was Lord Cygnus who, after a year in seclusion and training, emerged back into the modern world to begin working towards ultimate revenge.

As Maximillian Reinhardt, he entered into the best university in the nation, using a combination of the skills he honed and the powers he mastered to ensure admission without any cost to himself. This university, as many knew, was the entry ground for the national Establishment and Maximillian wanted to make his first stroke something that only others in the know would comprehend. Before the first snows fell that year, Lord Cygnus made his debut.

The campus featured the known headquarters of a notorious secret society, one that invited and inducted new members in the Autumn, and this was a window of opportunity that could not be ignored. He donned a variation of his ritual vestments--reinforced for the action he expected--and took up his implements, and then assaulted the society's campus headquarters on the night of the new recruits' indoctrination. Fire and brimstone erupted as he immolated each campus cultist in turn, incinerated those that did not immediately succumb, and then unleashed conflagrations to accelerate the destruction of both the cultists and the cult headquarters. One--only one, the senior responsible for the local operations--he allowed to live saying to the badly-burned bravo "You tell your father that I, Cygnus, Lord of the Abyss, comes for them- ALL of them."

He then called forth a petty minion, and bound it to his will. He bade this minion to not be seen or heard until recalled, and then to watch over the bravo. As he expected, the young man passed the message to his father, and then his father ensured the tragic passing of his son in order to keep secret the truth of their order. The minion reported what he observed, and then returned to the nether from when he came. "The Burning is on."