The Devil's Puppet

[Zapp]

And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?'

What followed was the most excruciating period of Eddy Looper's life. It consumes a lot to be broken apart, seemingly atom by atom, and reshaped into a tool of the Phantoms. A lot of time, and a lot of pain. The Enlightenment process was the main reason the Phantoms were small: so few people were strong enough to survive it, and of those who do, most are relegated to the role of mere pawns due to the long-term damage undertaken.

And it hurts a lot more when you resist it. The apparent meekness that came with Syn's appearance was gone now that he knew what they were trying to do to him. Looper stubbornly resisted both the psychological and physical alterations that were forced upon him, delaying the process by some short time. However, one man against the entirety of the Phantoms? His chances were slim-to-none.

And eventually, the Phantoms snapped his enfeebled mind like so many dry twigs. Did he go insane? It's impossible to tell. Certainly he was no longer a defender of justice and liberty, no; he hung on the strings of the Phantoms, living for the will of the Revenant now.

Looper became a puppet to the Devil, and a betrayer to his people. He didn't become a betrayer, he became the Betrayer; Iscariot..

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