A (near) giant of a women, blonde hair and unseeing blue eyes was chained to a chair. Zipties and metal bind her in place. She is naked, save a dull metal necklase. Which is pulled tight around the women's neck, a chip of topaz glints in the dim basement light. Her breath was ragged, but heard as another figure splashes gasoline around the room, cheerfully humming as she drizzels some upon their blonde captive.
"....ashes~ ashes~ we all fall down~" she sings, voice rough and forced out through heavily scared lips.
Immolated Eve, Freak, Pres 4 (Charred) Ex-Lucifuge (small albino mouse can bee seen on or near her person. Familiar called Dread Mouse.)
From somewhere above them, a frail creak echoed as a door was opened. The authoritative thud of boot heels pounded above their heads, floorboards groaning in protest, small trickles of dust falling from the pipes overhead. It was clearly purposeful. A warning not to get jumpy and light a match. Then the tortured sound of boots against badly aging stairs drifted down into the basement with no warning creak from the cellar door. The noise was merely a production, a performance, a courtesy. Mischa Strand, the Poet, wasn't a particularly large person, after all. Certainly not when compared to the giantess bound to the chair.
Dispassionate eyes took in the frantic breathing of their captive, took in the sight of tendons straining in her shoulders and neck as she tested the bindings, took in the way the light caught in the stray droplets of gasoline as it spilled from the lip of the canister.
"You're getting ahead of yourself, Eve," Strand warned, annoyance edging her voice, knife sharp as she stalked further into the room. "You don't want to have to ride in the trunk, do you?"
.
[Mischa Strand, "The Poet", Genius, ex-VASCU]
Breathing can be heard from a darkened corner of the basement as well, at odds with the frantic breathing of the bound woman. It starts deep, sharp... but slowly levels out. A calming process. For focus.
As the breathing becomes normal once more, a shape emerges from the dark. A man, wearing a dark grey suit and severely outdated glasses, approaches the nude giantess. Average looking, though possibly due to the years being unkind. His features are archetypally male, with a stern jawline and clefted chin. Yes, he probably had been handsome in his youth. Twenty or so years ago.
He's aware of the others - the manic burn victim and dispassionate, calculating genius - but he doesn't acknowledge them. They are obstacles. This is wrong. Where's the challenge? He steps forward again. His steps make audible splishes in the pooling accelerant around the chair. Bending at the waist, he stoops forward and gives the ziptie around her wrist a little tug. Then frowns. Straightens.
"What's the point? Why here?" he asks aloud. More to himself than anything - but certainly loud enough for the others to hear.
[Kendrick Michael; Avenger; Presence 3; Assassin-for-hire]
Strand's stomach began to churn, a surge of acid crawling up her throat. Her eyes were locked on Eve, inexorably drawn to the twisted runnels of melted flesh, the cratered topography of pustulated, bulging, wrinkly, scarred flesh, and to the pulse that lay beneath. In her mind's eye, she saw the blood pulsing beneath that skin, throbbing in time to the beat of Strand's own heart. The sweat smell of cooking flesh filled her nose, the symphony of agonized screams tickling her ears. For a moment, she saw the world through the firebug's eyes, saw the glee that came from setting flesh alight, to hearing the music as tendons popped and bones cracked, to the need to transform the world just as she had been transformed.
"Eve. Eve!" Strand repeated loudly. "Remember why we're here. What did Y ask us to do? Can you remind me?"
He pauses long enough to imagine Eve lighting a fire that would hungrily seek out first the air the woman would try to breathe. Then her hair. Then her skin would char and her flesh would harden and cook. Little room for persuasion in the middle of that. Poetic, though.
“Yes, right. Well, as we’ve seen, Eve’s a little excitable.” he mutters, turning his head to Strand. “And the ‘Witch Slayer’ here looks like she’s mentally checked out. She’d be on fire before she knew what was going on.” Even so, he looks into the bound woman’s unseeing eyes. Maybe she is listening. Maybe the threat of death will bring her around.
“Oh, there’s a reason. Same reason she’s on Y’s radar: The bitch is dangerous.”
A beat. Michael looks at the bound, nude woman again. His head tilts to the side for just a moment, expression neutral, then the back of his hand flies across the woman’s face, with a satisfying, meaty thwack. “No happy place right now, sweetie. In case you hadn’t noticed? This nice girl here would like to burn you alive.” A patronizing smile rests on his lips.
“You didn’t answer the question, Eve. Why. Are. We...” His voice lifts and rises with each punctuated word. Until he very calmly and almost fatherly finishes with “Here?”
But then there was Kendrick Michael. A killer who demanded satisfaction and validation like a stock broker demanded bonuses. His casual display of power, the backhand across Lacuna's face, or even his words to Eve, betrayed his need to feel powerful, to exult in his superiority. But what had caused such a need, such a lust for predatory validation? According to Y, it was the emergence of human social antibodies. Literal predators to hunt the monsters on the fringes of the world, though Strand suspected it was something else. Something excruciatingly pedestrian, like a parental suicide, an abusive alcoholic guardian, or even just a simple case of congenital psychopathy.
His attention turns to Eve. Is she... serious? He really has to ask himself that. She’s either playing some angle to make the woman more pliable or she’s just completely lost it.
He decides the latter. “And how will we get her and the chair upstairs, hmm?” he asks, as one might ask a child. Another question pops into his mind. But one for himself. Why is Strand just watching all of this?
"The real question," Strand broke in, "is whether or not Y was being straight with us. The Witch Slayer hasn't made a kill in years. Is that because she miraculously figured out how to hide the bodies? No. And she didn't exactly look thrilled to see us. So where does that leave us? Is the test whether or not we can recruit the Slayer, or is it something else?"
Abruptly she stops. The chair hasn't moved but she turns to Strand and looks at the Poet. The valleys and hills of the mutilated and melted flesh contort as her brow furrows. "But it's Y. Y has a reason. A lot of them. They wouldn't....it Y!" she says, a near shriek. "We'll recruit her or kill her." her eyes flash as she nods. That was the only possibility.
Strand finally breaks the sing-song filibuster and makes her opinion known. She’s searching for meaning. Purpose. All that shit that makes people like her tick. Michael would prefer something more up front. Direct. ‘Kill these people’ or ‘Kill this person while his friends watch’. The sheer thrill of the kill is enough for Michael... probably the only thing he has in common with Eve. Poor thing.
“My thoughts exactly, Eve. I didn’t sign on for games. I signed on for plying my ‘talents’.” His smile turns wicked, lustful. “What good is this Y if he’s just playing games with us? We should knock some sense into the Witch Slayer. If she gives in, Y gets another soldier. If not? We enjoy ourselves.”
Even as he speaks, Michael searches the basement for something to break over the woman’s head. A mop? That would do nicely. The broken haft would easily pierce her throat when he got tired of beating her. He snags the mop and wields it like a baseball player.
Chat Shard, copied from Discord chat, Scene began June 1
Cayce , Travisc06489 , Saber Sloth
Y's Disciples
Draft this Post
Presence
Allies
dox fail
