She has yet to move from the very spot she put herself in. She hovers over the cracked mirror on the ground. Hands are placed on cold ground and tear stained face only continues to get wettened from tears that doesn’t seem it will stop. The sides of her hands are bruised and probably, glass is stuck inside. She hasn’t noticed. Tails are sprawled out behind her and long white hair falls over her shoulders. She just....looks at her hideous face through that cracked mirror. She has been begging these scientists to reverse it. To change her back, but nothing’s happened. They probably can’t hear her, or...probably don’t care about the amount of pain and misery she’s feeling.
Her body trembles, “I’m sorry....Please....” This is punishment isn’t it? It has to be. Her eyes shuts tight and she can feel it---She can feel the need to S C R E A M. However, just when she’s about to, she hears someone approaching. The familiar scent of someone she’s grown to like is strong. This particular scent has helped her more than one time, and he’s approaching the store. Surely, he’ll see the sign and leave.
Junpei.....PLEASE GO.
She doesn’t know what will happen if he stays. THAT scent.....It smells so, so good.
she’s.....hungry.
Once again, tears are falling down her cheeks, wetting snow white fur.
「You haven’t seen a room this stark in a long time. It reminds you of the place you woke up in when you first came to this city. But this time, there are no monitors. There’s no smug human barking at you about how things are going to be and no joke of a weapon to defend yourself. There’s none of that. It’s just you.」
「Two of you.」
「By all accounts, she looks exactly like you. Tall and proud and full of piss and bitter soporific sauce. But something about her seems off.」
“That’s right. I’m not you. I’m what you used to be.”
「You can’t say you’re entirely caught off guard by the fact that she can speak. It’d be pretty fucking weird to be stuck in a room with an unmoving double, but then again, in this city, you never can tell. What does send your shout poles blinking is the fact that she seems to be able to read your mind. Not only that, but there’s also the added bonus of her seeming to think there’s a large enough discrepancy between you that’s enough to comment on.」
) (IC: da fuck you mean what i used to be
“You should be able to answer that question on your own. What changed, Meenah?”
「The urge is strong to just outright cull the bitch, but she just smiles at you as though she knows exactly how you’re feeling and it’s the cutest thing in the world. Have you always been this irritating? You’re pretty sure you have, but being on the receiving end of it is something you don’t want to think about or experience. It’s too bad you don’t really have a choice in the matter.」
“Well? Are you going to answer me or will you keep standing there continuing to hate yourself more than you already have been?”
) (IC: who said i hate mashellf
“You did.”
) (IC: when
“Every single day. Maybe not out loud, but haven’t you always said actions speak louder, anyway?”
「You want to raise every bit of unholy hell you possibly can against what she’s saying, but unfortunately, you can’t. Well, you could, but you’d be LYING TO YOURSELF. Literally. Maybe it wasn’t necessarily outright hatred at yourself, but it was more because--」
「Oh, that cagey bitch.」
“I see you get it now.”
) (IC: why da fuck didnt you just come out and say dat
“Not how it works.”
) (IC: youre fuckin ANNOYIN you know dat
“Thank you.”
「You hate admitting she’s (you’re???) right. But you don’t hate yourself completely. You think back on what the Grand Highblood said to you when you met. Maybe he was right. You hate WHAT YOU’VE BECOME. In the time that you’ve been here, you’ve done your share of damage, but overall, you feel you’ve let yourself start to grow COMPLACENT. You didn’t think of it that way then, but he reminded you of a lot of things. You’ve been far too quiet. Your old generals would probably look down their sniff nodes at you. Even with the little stunt you pulled, you wouldn’t have let something like a handful of PLUCKY WRIGGLERS and a SHITTY SLITHERBEAST IN THE SNEEZEPLANT TRAITOR stop you from getting what you wanted. 」
「The old you would have kept going. Isn’t that the way you presented yourself when you gave him his reminder? The old you would have gotten her prongs dirty and plunged this city into absolute CHAOS and TERROR. Yeah, you don’t have all your powers, but you didn’t have all of them when you started, either. Your kingdom started on the back of a relentless work ethic and savage efficiency. Sure, there might have been some OUTSIDE INFLUENCE involved in it, but over time, you learned to see the beauty in it. That BULBOUS-HEADED BULGESTAIN had some points here and there. It made you what you are. It made you STRONG. Like fuck are you gonna let a bunch of bespectacled datafuckers and their game of meowbeast and cheese critter change that.」
「But you stop yourself thinking about something else. Since you’ve gotten here, you’ve actually stopped and spoken with your people. That was’t something you were necessarily able or willing to do before, namely because of your RAMPANT PARANOIA the last time you took your nub off their necks.」
「But here is different. You don’t have quite the same menagerie of killers under your thumb with some plotting to kill you (yet). And sure, Pyrope isn’t exactly a shining pillar among the rabble that you’ve got at your immediate disposal, but she’s one of the ones that keeps coming back. Perhaps it was because of this minor change in approach. Maybe she’s just maggots. Who the fuck knows at this point? All you can say for certain is something’s not working. You think it’s time to fix it.」
「You look up and see yourself staring back at you expectantly.」
) (IC: if you want me to break down cryin or some shit because a dis stunnin revelaseaon you can bite me
“As if. I know you better than that.”
) (IC: so what now then
“Choose.”
「You blink and she’s gone. You don’t have much time to marvel at her ability to make an exit because you’re too busy staring at the MYSTERIOUS DOORS that definitely weren’t there before. There’s nothing about them that gives you any indication of where they lead. You don’t like it. Not one bit. Then again, there’s not a lot about this place you DO like, so you guess it’s par for the course.」
「You stand in front of the doors and consider everything that’s happened. You think about how you died here and how you died before coming here. They were mistakes and you don’t deny you made them, but you learned from them. You’ll keep learning. But it seems before you can do that, you’ll have to go back to basics, so to speak. And to do that, you have to choose.」
「You go for the door on the LEFT.」
「Almost instantly, your body is wracked with agonizing pain. You feel as though you’re being stabbed, burned alive, bitten, exploded, and various other horrible forms of violence all at once. It’s blinding and maddening and you’re pretty sure you’re screaming at this point. You can’t hear yourself over the sound of what you can only believe is your body being torn apart inside and out. You feel like you’re only a step away from dying all over again. You almost want to give in.」
「But you can’t. You won’t. You REFUSE.」
「You have things to do. You have an army to gather. You have a city to bring into line. You have a YOU to be. This pain is nothing but a stepping point. A cleanse. You’ll survive it, if only because you’re sick of dying. Or maybe in spite of it. You aren’t sure. You don’t really care. You just know you’re not dying here alone. Not anymore.」
「Before you know it, you find yourself on your prongs and knees on the floor of your respiteblock, panting and gasping air, covered in sweat. Your skin looks ashen from what you can see. You probably look a mess. Once you get to your feet and manage to look over at the mirror on the wall, you see you’re right.」
「But you also see a woman standing tall. A woman who is capable of anything. A woman who remembers.」
「And most importantly, you know a woman who knows all too well what they say about what doesn’t kill you.」
No one could prepare their ears for the unearthly sound that rumbled through the apartment complex of Sector 4.
The very noise would perturb anyone had they not known the context behind it, and who’s healthy lungs had released such a wail into the sky. From recent events, many might find themselves on edge, preparing for the return of Wraiths--or perhaps, worse.
Any roommate, and those close by, would hear the maddening chaos that exploded inside the very room X-4. The cries of a man most had come to understand was so arrogant in his ways that simple conversations would always somehow devolve into involving him. A man many would refuse having any contact with, or acknowledging him as a friend.
This spoiled man, stuck in his ways of believing himself to be royalty, left nothing untouched in his apartment.
Furniture, clothing, appliances, floorboards, bed sheets, everything in one way or another, had been ripped, flipped, turned over, torn, scattered, thrown, crushed under the heels of a now hysteric man.
He’d find himself now, after hours of panic and tears, seating himself inside a tub of water that had long gone been the warmth comforting paradise he’d hoped it to be. It was now like ice to the touch, time having stolen it’s high temperature, sapping the luxury of heat and leaving him yet again with nothing. He’d grown colder by then, and the atmosphere of the room had shifted to such an overwhelmingly heavy weight, many would find themselves having trouble just breathing inside it.
This man--King Knight--Augustus Tolvaj, son of a witch and human king, unrecognizable and cast away inside his twisted and trashed apartment. Such prideful golden locks had died since the start of his episode, and his peachy complexion had faltered to a clammy, sickly pale, complete with wiry thin hairs that seemed twisted and mangled on both his head and face. What he was wearing now... Soaked and covered with mud that had somehow refused to let go of his entirety. His shape took a skinnier form, less plump and overwhelming as what appeared to be natural for him--for this very shape he now donned was him. The one locked inside gilded armor, now shown to whomever would investigate the noise, trapped in a bathtub looking utterly hopeless.
Even once sparkling, alluring emerald-like eyes had died this day, replaced with empty palish green orbs that not dared to tear themselves away from the browning water. He was dissociating, and at best trying to ignore the world surrounding him. Every noise down to the tiniest drop of water or his own tears against the now muddied prison he sat in had sent him into a twitching fit.
It was just too much. All of it... Just too much to bear.
As Kachina approached the house, she’d notice the smell before anything else. A hot reek of sewage and decay and smoke. Not a smell one might expect to encounter in this particular sector, but the wind could have easily carried it from oo2.
Since she’d killed and devoured Evie a few hours ago, Gwyndolin had been lying unconscious, internally struggling to keep Aldrich from taking back control of her body. He was furious, raging and pleading and proselytizing, but the meal had him somewhat placated, if unwillingly. She stirs as she hears somebody open the door, both consciousnesses rising to the surface. A frightful sight, visible even from the front door; a heaving mound of wet, blackened flesh with bones roiling within it, nearly filling the space of the kitchen and spilling out into the surrounding rooms.
There’s drops of blood speckling the apartment floor. The Drones had left him in rough shape, that was for sure, but she feels like she’s been hit by a truck. The last week is nothing more than a haze.
Callie knocks at his bedroom door, raising her voice a little. Her headache spikes briefly and she winces. “Grom? You okay? I got a weird message and I... You wanna just go out and get breakfast? I don’t feel like cooking...”
Something burns within him, now. Not the fires of passion nor the warmth that comes with accomplishment, but something hot that courses through his body, carves out his insides and replaces them with raw, vicious power. A stranger’s blood still dripping from his mouth, the slight wobble on every step rendering him no less agile, widened eyes darting about in a futile attempt to map the tuneless world around him. To stay even the slightest bit ahead-- he can’t lose.
More figures shift into existence, shadowy in the half-light and most certainly drawn in by the commotion; he charges for the nearest without pause, feels his blade catch and tear through flesh, his foot crushing down on a neck as the person falls.
He knows nothing but a steady burning, a need to fight on.
The scientists didn’t lie, did they?
The sword plunges through another chest, nearly to the hilt; he turns and punches a third person in the jaw hard enough to feel a sharp pain in his hand. Three bodies now lie prone on the ground, and he doesn’t care to make sure they’re dead.
It’s all dead already. All horrific, empty silence.
He extracts his weapon from its victim with a heave and ventures further, out to the mouth of the alley.
And there, he sees another person staring him down. One that seems... almost different, in some vague, blurry-edged way.
Bansai grins, or grimaces-- it’s always been hard to differentiate.
Hardly anyone would be able to draw him out of his current seclusion. After his apartment had took the brunt of his mental break down, he found himself barely finding any strength to carry himself down the streets towards District Mu. The poor bastard had done everything to ensure himself to be entirely unrecognizable, passing off as some homeless man than the regal, dolled up King he’d claimed to be.
In his silence, trotting along the streets and hesitating every time someone got too close (which wasn’t very close in terms of measurement), he freezes all together, terrified dull eyes locked upon the familiar figure, worried that somehow his cover may be blown..
