The Missing of the Giant Mountains
Investigative Mission
Date: 09/27/67
Location: The Derelict Mansion - Liberec Region - Czech Republic
OOC - Collab with all of the people almost.
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Their resonance died after the false Cerberus was dead. Wren was flicked with a flourish of her blade immediately and Zosar glanced to the line of scorched ground where the beast had made a valiant attempt to use the close range to take him with it.
“C’mon, man…not even gonna stay with us for the whole song and dance?” Just as she’d promised Zosar, just a handful of seconds of release. The engine whistled to a stop, smeared blood still sizzling along the blade like the blotches of a camo pattern. Wren side-eyed the bloody, steaming mess. Whatever remained of the chimera. It was brutally overkill, truth be told. But, as she’d also promised Zosar, they were done with the chimeras as fast as possible.
‘Told you it’d only take a sec.’ The thought slipped into their link. Surprisingly, there didn’t seem to be any of her usual smugness laced behind it. No, it was full of gratitude towards Zosar for trusting in his partner.
Now they had a chance to back up Sara with the extra time they’d bought.
“Oh, and I had a v—wonderful vals prepared for our esteemed guests…! TRAGEDY!!!” Beelzebub groaned, moaned, whimpered. Frail little goopy, ink-black arms flung wide as he strut along with bobbly step. Going nowhere in particular, as if he were trying to embrace the whole room all at once. Like a distressed princess looking to faint.
“Yer’ a real drama queen ain’t ya…?” The jester’s cries drew further out the more she focused on leaving the room, putting her seal back up. Until she was donning nothing regal, and the rush cleared from her mind. Emptied. The gramophone died down.
She needed to focus.
Zosar’s free arm rolled on the side where his gear and armor had been damaged from the final dying attempt of the damned monster. He could feel no pain but he did feel the discomfort of heat where the attack had brushed him. The left side of his armor and partly the clothing, were damaged but underneath that he felt no pain and it seemed the layer of protective gear below all that was still intact. Still though, he felt needles of heat.
His tongue clicked.
Getting better gear would be a necessity. The thought that came next though wasn't one that filtered: Was he really that rusty from not being on the field in two years while he'd gone through that survey?
Oh Wren was excellent, and the compliment in this thought made it through to his partner. But he felt like he was lacking, not as up to par as he wanted from the time he had spent in Japan training. Like even compared to his past partnerships before Wren, he wasn't moving as fast as he should. He had expected better results showing but then again there hadn't been much time to do much trial and error since he and his special gem had met. This was adequate but he needed to be better than ‘adequate’ or ‘good’, especially as he observed the others in their exchanges with the enemy, and could see it already in the near future where they would be in two weeks, three, or a month from now. These thoughts weren't distracting her partner but they slipped in as he watched, timing himself.
Sara moved in with acrobatic aptitude on the Jiangshi Demon Weapon with Dante’s support while Kisei and Elly had clearly gotten the Baroness on the run.
Wren would have felt something from Zosar, displeasure or maybe a lull in his excitement based on the leaking of his thoughts on his own performance that made it to her. Though that self-scrutiny disappeared when the Jiangshi countered Sara and Dante’s attack.
‘Show time’ made it through before Jiangshi's laughter was accompanied by the sudden powerful shift in the air and that spiritual awakening was what gave him a momentary pause.
‘Right.’ She replied, staring at the Jiangshi with pupils blown wide for a moment. A momentary slip, the pressure in the air died down to a faint trickle in her nape as it reached her soul. Wren’s eyes narrowed, unshaken, her pupils shrunk back into slits. A tongue raked over her upper lip, nose flaring at the scent, the metallic taste in the air ‘Let’s fuck this guy up.’
Something hollow growled in her stomach, the chainsaw grumbled in Zosar’s hand like it were hungry too.
It was a howl, not one but several, air whistled with the snarl of rage. Chandeliers danced on chains, hair was shoved back by wind.
Tapping into the Murderous Wavelength was like standing not far from the rushing waterfall. It poured into the atmosphere of all nearby with its presence. For Sara it was more intense than it was the others, perhaps not crippling but certainly intense and pungent to her Olfactory Soul Perception. The bloodlust that he exuded before wasn’t tempered, it reached out like a massive hand. It lacked the rotten scent of Madness, that caressing tickle to draw out the worst parts of one’s psyche such as Wren’s Gluttony, but it kicked, and it kicked hard. It thrashed and that thrashing brought about a change in the pressure in the air that was pushed and a current that stunk of sweat, the metallic hint of blood, and oppressive feeling of fury became known as the undead combatant's soul swelled with rising power.
Jiangshi had his work cut out for him, he realized. The Baroness was practically useless with her pathetic whimpering cry. The beasts had been so easily dispatched they had hardly done much but be distractions, hardly good ones considering their opponent wasn't injured to buy him more time. That fucking girl’s Death Scythe had stripped him of what he had traded his very mortality for and had only just upped the stakes, and now this half and half abomination thought it could go toe to toe with him just because he had been only slightly impeded?
He laughed almost maniacally. The amused anger fed the power of his soul.
It was do or die. He intended to deliver.
Life and death was not just a thrill, it was a rush, an intoxicating sensation that fed Jiangshi as he attacked Sara with, instead of exhaustion like he should have been feeling- a fervent rush. The claws came at a surprisingly faster speed than before. Where he should have been perhaps slightly slower, his speed here while not insane enough to guarantee death or an inability to evade narrowly had his vampiric endurance been a factor, was still faster than one might expect from someone that could now remember the sensations of the aches and pains of time. It was a testament to what the Murderous Wavelength could do, where he did not care, did not bother to retrace his steps, did not want to stop, he just wanted them dead. Each and every one opponent here had to die, and that began with the mutt and her axe friend before he turned to the bitch and that annoying Death Scythe. The old reminders of his body, the tingling sensations that may have been present here or there where he was not transformed- felt both exhilarating and infuriating. If they did anything they fed into that hatred, that anger, that excitement in battle- fed into his soul, giving him power and speed that counteracted some of what Kisei had done. And turned it all on Sara in the brief window available to strike.
‘S-stop hesitating…?’ Sara hadn’t even realized she was hesitating until Dante called her out on it. She was given the amplified form of her wavelength plus Dante’s and she pushed it into her legs. The last thing she wanted to do was disappoint her weapon. Her attack was reflected, and that weird guy transformed partially.
What she wasn’t expecting - and that she should have at least accounted for - was the Murderous Wavelength. She growled, ears pinning back, as she felt a wave of spiritual sound hit her. She watched as she was about to land as these new jagged and colorful claws came for her, the chains looking more durable and less like anyone could get caught on it. She surmised that attacks would bounce right off.
That was also just as bad as getting caught on those chains.
With the momentum that had her somersaulting backwards from the failed attack, she curled up into a ball to make her somersault faster to reorient herself. With Dante’s halberd head above her, she swung down. The reach he had was nice, because she was able to hit one of the arms and pole vault away and down the corridor.
She saw Zosar and Wren there, and she felt relief. Good, she won’t be caught dead.
She spun once she landed, holding Dante behind her, trying to tune out as much of the sound as she could from that cacophonous wavelength before she went in for another attack.
“You look all cute n’ tiny when yer’ transformed, carrot-top. Suits you well, actually…” Came Wren’s voice, like an earworm lingering in the comms. Once again putting an (arguably awful) attempt at being Zosar’s voice mid-combat to save him time and breath. “Let’s tag-team this asshole. Fall back behind us if yer’ losing strength.”
Her voice turned stern, losing the quips. She began to pour and amplify wavelength throughout Zosar’s body, amp his output. They weren’t damn near going all out like a moment ago, it’d be a waste here. She figured they were practically buying time until Elly and Kisei showed up to behead the Jiangshi.
Hearing a sickening THUD behind him and the clashing of metal meeting metal, Brother Lee did not bother to turn around. He didn’t need to. The weak bitch was dead. Soon it would be six on one, not something he could achieve a victory in. Which left him with two options, one being to just turn into his full weapon form and out last them, two was to have a gallant death and to take out as many of them as he could before the reaper could intervene.
While becoming a Jiangshi had given him immortality, it had robbed him of much else, if not for the influence of the Master and some monks, he would be little more than an insane rotting corpse. Now was the time to pay that debt back. And he would do it by killing the two lessers.
“Ohho, you think I’ll just fight with you both linked up?” As the murderous presence pushed against them, his soul blazed with corruption and strength that would mark him as a serious threat, not but a couple steps from being a Kishin by some estimates as he rushed in, taking wide hopping steps as he became a literal whirlwind of destruction, raining blows down the hall, aiming for each respective meister, as coiled claw lashed out, being retracted at lightning fast speeds, to keep them on the back foot, on the defensive.
There was also one more thing that would be of concern to everyone in that hall, in that building, the Taoist seal on Jiangshi's head was glowing red, burning away bit by bit as he gave himself over to this one final flame of power…. And what would be left, bit by bit, would be an insane corpse… He was attempting to awaken some spark of madness, to give himself to it with the goal of killing at least one of them as he did his spinning advance.
Sara deflected the first clawed attack that was aimed at her, her stance defensive as she gave barely a backfoot to the ensuing onslaught of the clawed arms, making sure to keep light on her feet to dodge any low swipes. When Zosar deflected the first incoming claw he did it with a simple deflection that hardly did anything to slow his approach, but the next as the Jiangshi gave further into rage and bloodlust was strong enough to stop his own advance, as well as make Sara’s tail curl between her legs.
The baroness death had just changed the game.
The air could be felt with a vibrant shift to it as the AW’s soul suddenly flared with what could only be described as a new burst of energy. Bloodlust that lingered in the air like perfume or cologne now mingled with the atmosphere like a humid day after a hard rainstorm. Zosar blitzed, with Wren’s support he was fast, should have been fast enough to close the gap- but Madness along with the Murderous Soul pumping through the Jiangshi’s body, like a sugar rush after several energy drinks, made the ex-merc go on the defense near immediately when the experienced AW used those claws to increase the range of his reach and forced the Meister to block a sweeping claw which blurred by far faster than it had any reason to given what Kisei’s ability should have been doing to the vampire.
Desperation had a way of raising the stakes, and it showed. Unlike the Baroness, Brother Lee made it clear he would not go quietly, and his desperation now that the Baroness was gone had brought change to the battle. Madness did not spark from his soul, it burned and grew rapidly with Lee’s desire to give himself over to his madness. It mixed with the power of the Murderous Wavelength pouring through his body to turn every bit of stimulus from the fight into fuel for that excitement. The madness he released burned hotter the more he gave into rage and excitement and as it did, it touched the senses of each person in the room as the undead AW took advantage of this development to lash out.
The madness wavelength he exuded was weak -for now- but when one gave into their madness, it eagerly took the call. The pulse that came with the immediate birth of this minor flame touched with a chilling, unnerving ghostly presence. In a way, this threw half the group backwards in time.
For Elly, she went back to that field with Ao. Someone trapped in a position she couldn't escape from. Where her life and the lives of her team had been in jeopardy, for a clear powerful moment she felt that here.
For Sara it was anxiety and frustration as claws parried her and Dante’s next move like they did the others. She was thrown back to L.A. and reminded of how little she had been able to do as the rituals started getting to her and Eva, and was thrown into the brief disturbing reminder of how powerful she had felt when she had embraced the raw primal nature of her emotions and taken to her werewolf form.
Wren felt her mouth go dry, her throat parched. Tingles along her spine that had her in her own space on alert. Beelzebub felt her unsteady shift as the pulse of madness stirred the air, and Wren felt a cold chill race down her spine as Zosar once again dodged an attack that came close to shredding his armor and leaving a deep wound on his body.
The attacks had gotten faster with this pulse, and for Elly, Wren, and Sara, the foreboding presence Brother Lee’s madness had created was merely a warning of the next thing to come should this fight go on any longer. It had stirred their emotions- the next pulse would be each and everyone's madness if the flames grew any more.
Elly for her part had been grinning as she prepared to enter the fight, still reeling from the high of the absorption and victory over the Baroness, however, that spark that came altered it. It was like an icy slap that stole her smirk. A bullet of fear shot through her body briefly, as it had back then. However, this was not the forest and the Jiangshi was not Ao. It did, however, take away all the enjoyment Elly was having.
Her face twisted into something more akin to Dani’s neutral face. ’...Alright, everything into speed. If we don’t pop his bloody head off, we’ll make sure he can’t focus on anything else,’ She spoke to Kisei with a huff. She kicked off, circling the Jiangshi to his back and beginning to swipe rather savagely. Of course, she expected the Jiangshi parry, dodge, or slash back. If she got a killing blow, great, but she didn’t believe the Autonomous Weapon would be so easily blitzed. She just wanted to overwhelm him and keep him from reacting to the other two pairs.
Narrowing his gaze, or so it seemed as the flaming red glow from them dimmed in response to Elly’s attack, the natural process of engaging the immediate threat would come to mind in the feral instincts that more and more made up the thinking process of Brother Lee. For now the whimpering werewolf and the other meister with the chainsaw wielding meister were distant threats as the double sided advanced shifted to account for Elly and her attempted ambush strike from the rear as both chains diverted and stopped for the time being, lashing out at the Meister and her multiple strikes as his soul burned bright. A barrage of blows that circled around to the rear and back to the front were unleashed, each arm operating in the openings left by the previous.
With sudden and unpredictable surprise, the twirling and limited motion strikes picked up in speed and intensity, becoming akin to the depiction of an atom, arms flung about as the claws prompted the creation of an offensive shield, advancing towards Elly as he did so, his legs shifting into and out of existence with each pass. Being he was essentially a poorly taken care of Zombie and a Hopping Chinese Vampire at that, means his movements on this front were slow going. Provided they wished to risk harm and with enough skill, timing or teamwork it was still possible to stop him, provided his second pulse did not go off and drive half their numbers to madness as well, the ominous and ridiculous laughter seemingly was aware of this fact. ”Ehehehohoheh!” Given the buildup in his soul, it was likely the last chance they would have, before the broaches put out half their number. Or they went Berserk and attacked on their own.
The madness was a surprise, because of course they needed more madness in their missions. Sara was able to block off the rest of the attacks aimed for her before the Jiangshi turned around to attack Elly, but she was starting to lose her focus. The brooches helped in cutting out the extent of the madness affecting her, but she felt like she wasn’t doing enough.
It was never enough, nothing was ever enough.
The growl that came from her was more like that of a beast than some dog. The werewolf half of her soul shifted as she wanted to do more. But, with Dante in her hands, she couldn’t abandon him. Thoughts to when she had hurt her allies and nearly killed Noah that day came as well as the destruction caused by that gang in LA. She decided she didn’t want to become like them. She managed to temper her beastly side. However, within their souls and between them, Dante can feel their connection trembling. It didn’t weaken, as she wasn’t letting the werewolf-half take over what was human since it would cause a disturbance in said connection, but she still struggled to keep her head in the game. All that hesitation was gone in favor of wanting to blitz this damn thing and go for the legs - if this thing even had proper legs to begin with.
Dante grits his teeth and winces over the obnoxious noise resonating throughout the field. He tries to muffle the sounds with his palms, but with the comms on it was redundant. He had half a mind to scream at whoever was causing the sounds. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard, straight up torture to him, but it wasn't as bad as it was for his meister. He can sense her fear, those stirring emotions trying to overwhelm Sara. Again, it felt like she was bearing the weight on her shoulders, and she was doing her best to give it her all. Dante realized whatever was going on might be affected because of the wavelength. She was fine moments ago. It was strange to see her switch up. It could also be due to stress too.
Dante felt the need to do something. He agreed to be the one to ground her and it seems now is that time. Dante clicks his tongue. It was like babysitting a child. If only he knew that is exactly how the others felt about him. He took a deep breath and raised his head through their soul space. ’Sara! Snap Out of it! Now is not the time to get in your head. You need to focus on what's in front of you.’ He scolded. ’It’s going to be okay. We can get through this. Take deep breaths. Count to three if you have to. As many times as you need.’ It may not be a good time to talk about relaxing, but honestly it seemed like Sara was losing it.
“Keep it together Sara, channel that frustration, whatever your partner’s saying, take it in as your anchor.” The words directly entered the comm in her ear from Zosar’s voice. It was, quite frankly, the best he could do to help cement her. He didn't even need to look to feel the shallow bloodlust starting to peek from her as Dante’s concern did get picked up in his senses as he ran by. Though he couldn't hear what Dante said, he hoped at least the carrot top would be able to handle Sara’s stirring.
She wasn't the only one he was concerned about. Wren’s shift had been noticeable. The shake in her wavelength was clear to him when that pulse rang. With Elly taking up the assault though and Lee shifting his attention, Zosar took the chance to move in. There was no time to take a few seconds to just wait. It might be too late by then if he did.
‘Focus on the task at hand, Wren, you've got this. I'm going to need a bit more power so we can finish this jackass off, just focus on me and we'll get through this ’, and as he ended that line, Zosar threw an extra dosage of wavelength through the link, slightly larger than what Wren had been managing with before he blitzed forward to take the opportunity that Elly was providing. The gap between what Wren could do with that dosage and the power it potentially brought was less than two seconds, but still plenty enough time for anything to happen in between.
All at once, she felt heat gathering across her neck and her wrists— her collar and the two bracelets beeped alive. A slow, foreboding countdown in her ears.
Wren’s heart sputtered, drummed, and she felt it pounding so hard against her ribcage that she could feel the reverberations pulsing at her throat. The murderous wavelength hadn’t shaken her, hadn’t quite kicked her fight or flight like it’d done with the others— no, it was the Jiangshi’s madness, like a whirling foul stench around him, that undid her. The candlesticks surrounding her wobbled, an earthquake shook the quiet of her soul room, and the calming fires snuffed out. The little devil in her ear laughing, intermittently, voice crackling beyond the veil of her calm seal, like he’d blown out the candles himself.
What used to be her own, quiet void, turned cold. Asphyxiating. The darkness wrapped around her neck, Beelzebub kept cackling, and it was Midori and that hole in his chest all over again. The forest, those golems, and her. All pathetic and useless in Zosar’s hand.
She stumbled up to her feet in her soul room, the echoing laughter around her growing more manic, wheezing for breath, clutching at her core, feeling like there was a black hole sucking in her stomach. ‘Focus’ Zosar’s words rang in her ears. This is what Kisei had trained her for back at the Hoshi state. She wasn’t the same as her past self in Belgium, she’d been given a way to fight it.
‘Focus’
‘You—ngh!— worry too much, Z…’ She tried playing it lightly, her voice hoarse and raspy. Like a woman that’d been wandering a barren desert for days. Her throat felt like it had scales lining its walls, her stomach a gaping void— still, she kept herself together. Swallowing down the knot in her throat and shouting, psyching herself up ‘I’m fine! Go get ‘im.’
It’d be a pain to look like a rookie DW in-front of Dante of all people. She wouldn’t be able to live it down.
There was the trademark lag from input and output of amplified wavelength in their resonance from their soul, but she managed to amplify and send back whatever Zosar had thrown at her without much of a hitch— only took a grunt and slapping herself back awake when she felt her focus began to slip, even a little.
‘I’m really startin’ to notice a pattern with this team, y’know?’ She chuckled, trying not to let her strain show through their link. ‘It’s always chimeras n’ witches n’— whatever the hell this is.’ ‘We really could use a vacation.’
A soft sigh escaped her before she decided to sit back down, cross-legged. Shutting her eyes and keeping her focus strong. ‘Hm, wouldn’t that be nice…’
‘It sure would be’, he echoed the sentiment, even as the kick in power hit and he brought Wren’s blade to bare. Perhaps after all this was over he'd figure something out for her. Three weeks and in the first few missions they'd both had some rattling surprises. It was a personal assurance to himself, even as he closed the distance to try and lay a cleaving slash on the undead AW.
Elly was quick to be put on the backpedal, swapping from offense to deflecting and dodging attacks from the Jiangshi and throwing counters using Kisei’s ability to make the chains connecting the sickles intangible. The bastard was focusing on her now and just laughing. Even worse, she could see Sara’s soul hitching and sputtering unstably. Worry treaded through Elly’s person, and it wasn’t just a result of the madness spike. However, it seemed like Sara stifled her own demons, as had Wren and Zosar was already moving in to attack. ’...Any bloody hour now… She mentally grumbled.
It was as if time slowed down all around Sara, her manic aggression becoming even worse as she struggled to stifle the madness peeking within her. Dante’s words echoed in her mind, and so did Zosar’s as he passed by. She grinned, giggling. ‘Ohh, my dear weapon… I’m not scared… Not anymore.’ Her collar around her neck beeped, a warning that she was getting close. She did keep herself human, but the bloodlust had felt so enticing to ignore.
She dashed forward, her naturally buffed speed causing her to pick up dust as she jumped towards the wall and slid across its surface to get to the Jianghsi’s side. At this angle, she would be able to avoid Zosar’s cleaving slash or any of Elly’s attacks. She pushed herself off the wall, using Dante like a spear as his halberd form had a point sharp enough to puncture. She aimed for the Jianghsi’s main body, using the wavelength Dante had given her before to empower her leap so she would reach the Jiangshi faster. She hadn’t lost her mind. Not yet.
As the trio engaged the Undead assassin, the flurry of actions would produce immediate results as it locked the trio in a brutal melee, with the initial deflections and guarding actions of Elly would force Brother Lee down a narrow attack pattern, that in turn was impacted upon by Zosar and Wren, however in the battle of weapon vs weapon, the chainsaw would gather the steel cable that made up the connections to his claws and would get stuck, an unstoppable force meets an unstoppable wall, and mutual cancelation results, forcing the cutting blade into reverse to release the cable that was jarring it’s teeth. With a spit and a sputter the weapon is wrenched free, bashing in a second time, the helmet of Brother Lee was split in two with his head remaining intact. Unsurprisingly possessing Chinese features, the skin was young, yet old, like a moldy cake that retained its base form, a maw of unnaturally sharp teeth and fiery red eyes stared at them each in turn, akin to something from a horror movie as he snarled and hissed. But between this and the efforts of Elly, an opening was left in the atom pattern he had created.
That was when Sara arrived with hatred overpowering her fear, and mayhap other feelings would arrive with the improvised halberd spear, running it though the insane Jiangshi’s ribcage, retching forward and twisting the blade, Sara would push in hard, letting out a guttural growl as the heart was finally pierced and they blades halted just briefly.
During this instance and with her current combat focus Elly would in kind make use of her death Scythe and take the head off at the neck in a single swipe. Brother Lee would collapse in upon himself, his body decayed and decrypted seemed to have lost its preserving trait, turning into a mixture of dust, bone and organic remains, with his head seemingly burning from the inside out. The evil Death Scythe’s soul would linger above the remains of his body, as if to be a glaring orb of corruption that wished them all dead even now…
Now, the battle was over, and next would come the aftermath, splitting the spoils, and deciding the next course of action. Time was ticking on the kidnapped people and whatever agents remained.
Interactions/Mentions: EmperorsChosen (Elly) Sir Les Paul (Kisei) Merciless Medic (Sara) Pumpkid (Dante) The Regal Rper (Zosar) Haze- (Wren)[/scroll]