Going Down The Rabbit Hole [Ryuu]

Rapture had never been in a pressurized tank or submarine, but imagined the current level of pressure in the room to be something like it. Spiritually, at least. Like a large press crushing her souls. Upon moving closer to the apparent testing chair, she felt a violent urge to vomit, and the Mother Tiger––protector in chief––roared dull and painfully. Something wicked and foul had transpired in this room. Although her spirits had gathered plenty of energy before coming, as well as from the litany of people they had just killed, it felt as if it were being drained by the second.

Just as her spirits began to speak over each other and get really cacophonous, three entirely new voices infiltrated her mind. ‘Insects? Agitation? Replacements?’

“Thanks, but I already have a job,” Ryuu spat back, “killing you. So show some respect and great your guests in the flesh. Or ectoplasm, if you will.”

Instead of brandishing her chakrams, the yokai priestess sheathed them, calling upon a new spirit in anticipation for the proper arrival of the ghostly hosts. A transformation took place for the second time this evening as Rapture’s golden eyes turned blood red, her tattoos glowed crimson, and her entire body was engulfed in a glorious flame. Not seconds after, her previous outfit had turned considerably darker and spikier.

‘Foulest spirits make the finest dining,’ The Red Dragon snarled, ready for a fight.

"You're going to lose more than employees..." Hans added to the banter, him and Anselm also expecting a battle. There was a special kind of weirdness going on in his head- Rapture's also to a degree. Hans and Rapture would be hearing these voices as if they were standing in the same room, but Anselm and Rapture's spirits would be 'hearing' it through the ether.

"Speaking of food... we hunger... we prefer more meat for our meals but you will do for an appetizer~" another femine but different sounding voice said with need.

"TRESSPASSERS!" Bellowed a male, furious voice that actually made Hans wince from how loud it was.

"Stop wasting our time with talk! SHOW THY SELF!" Anselm hissed back into the ether, Hans was fine with whatever wannabe evil demon or spirit hamming it up. This gave his hack some time to dig up data. But was the room starting to... spin? No, the room was doing more than just spinning as if he was becoming intoxicated. It LOOKED like it was twisting and the walls were being sucked into themselves.

"So much fuss- over what? Some extreme reactions to our little wonder drug? But aren't you two special- you've brought a whole party for us~" the more seductive voice purred and Hans locked his aim toward on side of the room where a shape was for a very brief moment. But then it was gone- could it move quickly? Or... was it playing with his head. The latter one would be an issue since Anselm didn't make any indication he saw what he had.

But then the door to the room opened and Hans took aim, the figure behind the doors was a tall and (in Hans' opinion) clearly gave off evil creepy vibes. "I regret to inform you that I can't be here to greet you... but one of my thralls should be more than sufficient for you Kinslayer," the man spoke coldly, his arm morphing into a full on greatsword as he rushed forward- Hans opening fire on him but the man seemed to pay them little mind for the moment.

“Kinslayer?” Rapture retorted, almost amused at the irony of the situation but unimpressed by the use of a puppet. The Red Dragon also didn’t seem too thrilled, scoffing at the arrival. All this after a wave of vertigo, the room contorting in ways that would make for a great Tim Burton funhouse but not for a calm stomach.

For a brief moment, the yokai priestess worried that the drug had gotten through to her system. She had already imagined what it might be like to face her greatest trauma again, and that did give the tough as nails badass some pause; she had worked incredibly hard to erase the memory of her mother’s death entirely but had been forced to face it for a few brief yet horrifying seconds when she accidentally caught a whiff of the drug from a fresh corpse.

It wasn’t pretty, in fact, it was terrifying. It shook her constitution, and just the memory of having that memory fueled her with fear and anger, a dangerous combination but a winning one at that when fed to her spirits. Ryuuzaki Zankoko, or simply ‘The Red Dragon’ had lived up to his name in life, a cruel and brutal legendary fighter lived by the idea that if you weren’t on his side, your place was in the ground. His spiritual form evolved in a similar manner and had no desire to air any personal trauma of his own.

So, killing this meat sack would have to do.

His eagerness to devour moved faster than Ryuu’s mind as she was propelled forward, ignoring the strange surroundings in favor of focusing on unsheathing the fabled blood sword from her chest. It boiled and bubbled dangerously before taking on a solid form, still unbelievably hot and ready to meet the opposing blade.

The world began to blur together as her precise strikes moved with lightning speed. She would have to work on conserving energy, as this puppet could be one of many, so she kept the strikes light but direct, testing what the other weapon was capable of. If she could keep him busy with this dance, Hans could work on his target practice at the same time.

The blades would meet, and the hiss of steam erupting from contact was just the precusor as for brief moments, the thrall's blade had clearly taken damage- only to then shift sickenly back as if nothing had happened. "Oh, did we strike a cord? It seems yer not the only one here with that in common~" The Thrall's eyes flickered from the ice blue to magenta as if the speaker was taking a turn. Anselm flew into action, planning on trying to sneak up from one of the blindspots as the thrall was distracted with Rapture. Until the Thrall suddenly became lit on fire; and like with Rapture, just the fire was more than enough to trigger very bad memories and actually made Anselm flee with a panicked shriek. Hans didn't see it however, but could still feel Anselm's panick which further confirmed that their enemy was literally playing mind games with them.

"Your petty tricks will not work on me revenant. I will get to you when I am good and ready," The Thrall's eyes shifted back to ice blue as his blade arm returned to normal. "Come on then, stop wasting my time boy- bring out your little toy," he taunted before giving Rapture his attention again, making Hans flinch for a moment with irritation. It knew what they were capable of, or somehow was able to learn within a short time span. It had to be reading their minds, or something similar as Hans summoned his scythe and tried to get Anselm to steele himself.

"Anselm, whatever yer seeing isn't real. I don't know how for sure, but I think this entity can play with our minds. So I need you to take the wheel so the scythe is at its strongest. Let met try to... push out whatever it is in our heads," Hans waited until he felt the familiar cool darkness sweep over his conscious, and Anselm now in control... was the pure image of a very pissed off spirit.

"HOW DARE YOU REMIND ME OF SUCH AN INJUSTICE!" Anselm hissed, the scythe in his hands... getting more life to it as he went in to join Rapture.

The Thrall's eyes then turned a seering dark red, and both arms morphed into bone scythes that he swung around with supernatural speeds and power while spinning on his heels. "I'LL FUCKING DECORATE THIS ROOM WITH YOUR ENTRAILS YOU WASTES OF TIME!" The... loud and incredibly angry persona bellowed.

Rapture felt a bit taken aback at Anslem’s reaction, momentarily believing he had been exposed to the trauma drug. But if that were the case, Ryuuzaki the elder and everyone else would have likely been affected as well. ‘An injustice…' she pondered, but couldn’t hold her attention on the matter for long seeing that thrall boy turn his arms into bone scythes and started screaming about entrails. “Hmm, that’s not fun,” she remarked, dodging an attack and forgetting she just created a sword made of blood.

If these entities could tap into fears without using the drug, the petite powerhouse had to mentally steel herself for any memories that would come. She had initially thought the only person who would be affected was herself, but now that this extended to her spirits, who had a much longer history to draw horrifying events from, things got a bit dicier.

“Hans,” Rapture addressed the golden-eyed man. “I'm guessing you can reap souls from that scythe, cool. I do the same, but my spirits do the eating. Allow me to take this one. Also, this shapeshifting shit sucks.”

Indeed, the young woman had a questionable past with those who could shapeshift, and a brief intrusive memory of a similarly golden-eyed man came to mind. Now his past was one she wouldn’t want to have exposed, that’s for sure. A strange feeling presented itself, a feeling at first like being soaked in a sudden shower of rain, a feeling connected to all those who had experienced such horrific trauma. Then came the heat, an anger present and ready and roaring.

The Great Red Dragon answered by pushing her forward, literally, while the thrall was busy with Anslem and Hans. A swipe came her way, to which she replied with a low duck, sliding on the floor and to the back of the poor possessed pedestrian. She quickly jumped to her feet before he could swing around and plunged her blood sword into his back, a searing hot blade through flesh and bone and soul.

Both Ryuuzaki's knew this was but a pawn, but a meal was a meal. And they were still hungry.

And so the red hot blood blade, hissed as it pierced at surface level a 'humanoid' body... or did it? Given the entity's knack for twisting what you saw, it was possible it was happening now. Except Rapture lucked out and while foolhardy to get in close to such a violent bloodthirsty creature, it was also for that reason that this worked the way it did... until the original soul of the body was being claimed by her. Emotions and memories flashed through the collective minds of Rapture and her spirits, much of which mundane and probably related to this former scientist. But there were several that stuck out like a painting tilted slightly to one side.

Pools of long, white hair that seemed to move with a life of its own while straddling atop a white haired male in a red coat, giddiness and sincere joy at seeing them- then the memory shifted. A white haired male this time that looked very similar to the first, almost a twin as it were but they wore blue, and the point of view was looking slightly more up at them. The emotions here was adoration and giddiness at just being this close. A female with silvery hair and a white dress, then a smaller girl with pigtails, a masked and hooded figure with green glowing eyes, another small girl in some kind of onsie pajamas that looked like a Snorlax. "We knew you wanted us INSIDE of you~" one of the entities purred, the flashbacks stopping as Rapture would find her entire body suddenly... unresponsive.

In whatever mindscape her spirits existed in, they'd see something... very very big taking shape. A blacker than black shape with several sets of different colored eyes- magenta with heart shaped pupils, immediately surrounded by Copper, Orange, Platinum, Green, Red, and Brown colored eyes at the forefront with many more eyes and mouths than anyone would have time to count sitting over a gaping maw with numerous teeth. "This soul is not yours to take, it is mine," a smug voice intoned as the darkness seemed to be growing.

"He's our snack!" A more childish voice chimed in.

"He is bound by a deal he brokered with us, and will not go to you... and we think we'll take you along with him," The copper eyes bobbed as another voice spoke.

Rapture and her spirits were seeing a very rare case of something that made even The Red Dragon look... silly, and it wanted to eat all of them whole! But fortunately on the outside, Anselm was the one in control of Hans' body, and stayed his hand only a moment when she said to leave it to her. But something was obviously wrong, the body hadn't stopped moving but Rapture had. The body wasn't moving much but the fact Rapture had completely frozen was more than enough motivation to go in for the kill. The body reacted, one arm splitting into multiple tentacles that tried to ensnare him only to be cut down, ending with Anselm driving forward with a swing as some tentacles found their way into impaling his body. But the burning scythe had cut through its target, and whatever was trying to counter-eat Rapture and her spirits shrieked in actual agony as it lost its grip and was pushed out...

Being a woman of power and controlling, being out of control made Rapture feel… powerless. Naturally. But more than that, it triggered nasty memories she had buried away deeply, and whether the entity had purposefully triggered them, there they were.


A blaze, raging and angry. The air, choked with smoke and trees turned to ash, a devastation so massive that the country of Russia itself called a state of emergency. But the cause lie not within a natural prevue; it had been the monstrous form of the supervillain Ragnarök. Before taking on Buckingham palace, the titan had laid waste to Siberia simply as a practice run. Ragnarök figured he could do a lot of destruction without bringing too much attention to himself, and in such a vast land, it worked. More powerful than a volcano and certainly more sentient, he had destroyed so much already before turning his sights to a small village.

But before his monstrous form, he turned to his young daughter. “Iðunn,” he bellowed at the tiny speck of a girl. “Now to you. Kill everyone, every animal, and offer it to the Gods.”

Young Rapture obeyed quickly, trained thoroughly and methodically to answer to her father’s commands. The villain, albeit small, held few residents. Natives in rudimentary houses. ‘Never hesitate. Never waste energy. Lethality is a must.’ Her mind replayed her mantra as she slew her prey, speaking in Norse tongue as thanks and offering while doing so.

But Ragnarök’s own destruction interceded hers as he knocked over the houses and inadvertently got his offspring caught under a flaming wooden beam. Being such a small person would have been bad enough, but the beam was huge and heavy and on fire. What the prospective supervillain did not expect was help from one of the residence’s residents. A burly man, strong and powerful, aiding his enemy. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She just… froze, under such heated circumstances. Her bright blue eyes locked with the man’s deep brown. There was no understanding, no movement. She didn’t comprehend what had happened then.

Just like Ryuuzaki couldn’t comprehend in these moments. But in tandem with her intrusive memories, faces she didn’t recognize––were they the thrall’s?––flooded by as well. All happening so quickly in real-time, but to Rapture’s perspective, and eternity.

‘The soul is foul!!’ The Red Dragon spat, relinquishing the soul from his maw, and second later, his host had been released. It took a while for Rapture to gain back her ground. Again, no contact with the drug, but the effects were similar. Then again, they were dealing with the source now, so it made sense. Amidst the psychological chaos, Anslem had literally cut through it all. This partnership had been more useful than she’d like to admit.

“Uh, thanks,” the yokai priestess grimaced behind her mask. “I’m getting tired of this. We need a new plan.”

The Thrall's body fell to the ground with a wet squishy slop sound, whatever changes its puppet master had made staying in effect but now lifeless as Anselm tried to remove the offensive tentacles that had stabbed into him. Other than the grotesque creature on the ground, there didn't seem to be anything else happening right now; everything looked normal enough. "Foul creatue... it's unlike anything we've dealt with before," Anselm rasped, still in control for now as he tried to cover up some injuries.

Hopefully there wasn't any of the drug in the air, otherwise the breaches would be very problematic as the scythe's otherworldly flames died down and Hans was back in control. "I don't think we'll be doing so here," Hans added reaching into one of his pouches and looking for some medical supplies. "Are you alright? You completely stopped moving after you impaled it," Hans added as he tried to seal up the holes before any more exposure could be had, if it was in the air at all.

Finally, the are had depressurized and Rapture could breathe, giving thanks to her filtration system for neutralizing the smell of rapidly rotting corpse before it could reach her nostrils. She re-sheathed her sword, plunging the boiling blade back into her chest before morphing back into her standard yokai priestess form in a shimmery deep purple mist. The Red Dragon had served her well but needed a rest before he could return to the surface and deal with the real threat, if they would ever get to it.


“I’m fine,” Rapture clipped. “But annoyed.” She had acquired a few scratches from the thrall, but nothing major. The blood disappeared with the blade, leaving small wounds here and there. She was really out of practice. “But this thing, we have to remember, is the source of the drug. It can tap into our psyches and fuck with us directly. I’m guessing Anselm’s aversion to fire is linked to trauma, same with mine being immobilized.”

"It... went away when the thing's eyes were red however," Anselm mentally rasped indignantly, not liking a personal secret of his being exposed in such a way.

"Which is why the data we have will be important. I don't know of any occult creatures whose blood acts as a hallucinogen- but Alchemy and Chemistry are not my fortes," Hans patched himself up and got back to his feet, going back over to the computer he had started a hack on to see its progress. There wasn't any memory left on the device he had hooked up so he removed it and planned to check it in more depth.

"What else can we learn from this... thing?" Anselm questioned, unaware of how computers worked.

"Probably enough- but we shouldn't stay here for much longer if that thing might come back. There might be more guards regrouping outside also," Hans pointed out and Anselm took that as a cue to check.

"There's more useless mercenaries out here..." Anselm rasped after he came back.

"Naturally..." Hans deadpanned as the lights started to flash red with an automated message that didn't mention a self destruct, but rather phrased it as 'liquidation of assets.' That sounded... somehow worse.