[ PRP ] What is your [Mark, Rep ]

[Zoobey]

Despite the size, it moved rather quickly, making quick work of Rep, swallowing him in exactly one mouthful. He would stay there for a while, stuck in a strange mess of thick saliva and slowly numbing venom until there was a loud muffled noise outside, and the creature shook from the inside, a tear forming along its side-

- As a hand pulled Rep out from a gash in the throat that was already closing.

"Gross," was Mark's first comment, as the snake-monstrosity writhed and coiled upon itself from the series of mostly-controlled emergency explosives the Death assistant had saved. "You probably need to shower after this." He said this with the full knowledge that his last shower was probably five months ago.

The thing was already shifting forms again, a snake with spider legs, and Mark paled, grabbed Rep's arm, and pulled with an effort seen so rarely it could have been considered impossible. He ran - they ran - through underbrush and trees and gashing leaves as something, now more spider than snake, chased them, barreling down everything in its bath in a hurricane of loud cracks and roars.

It wasn't until Mark got to the clearing did he pause, and look around. "I'M HERE," he shouted apparently to the air, very obviously not looking at the now fully complete thirty-foot spider behind him. Any muscle control over dragging Rep had been lost, and he closed his eyes, bracing for impact. "Is-is it gone?"

No, the thing was definitely not gone.

OOC

Hp remaining - 75

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Rep didn't have time to get away and even if he had the panic rendered him so blitheringly useless that he wouldn't have been able to move. He found himself in the dark, in his worst ******** nightmare, exactly the way he'd always imagined it would be and not even able to overcome the adrenaline and rigid fight or flight enough to try and save his own life. It had to be how deer felt when a car, all bright lights and pain hurtled towards them. He couldn't ******** breathe and it was oppressive, dark and hopeless.

Fresh air and a hand were all that startled him out of it, a slap of reality that jarred him long enough to shake some of the jelly out of numbed, weak legs. A shower was the least of his troubles as pulled to his feet he ran. It was an instinctual run, something that seemed to hark back to something much smaller and more primate way, way back in Rep's genetics. Survival was running and millions of years of ancestors had successfully run from millions of predators to get to this scruffy slime covered disaster of a man. His muscles knew how to run even when his brain didn't, so he went. There was gratitude, deep visceral gratitude in a way he couldn't explain so didn't try but it was there, undeniable, and in that moment he would do anything to return the favour.

Don't look back. Don't look back, he thought. And he didn't, running until he couldn't any longer, staggering to a gasping halt by Mark's side.

It had legs it had legs he repeated like a desperate mantra in his head as the thing caught up to them. If it had legs he could fight it, it wasn't.. it wasn't..

And somewhere in his thoughts Tracey thought of serpents and of a very ancient curse and he didn't know what it meant but he wished he'd stop.

"Where the ******** is the boss?" he asked, panic more evident in his voice than he wanted it to be, sounding about as vulnerable and frazzled as he felt. "He's not here he's not ******** here."

But in the face of potentially some of his worst fears he drew his weapon anyway, drawing Tracey out and like a trapped and snapping animal lashing out at anything he could reach - which given the length of the weapon - was at least something.

"GO THE ******** AWAY." he yelled at it like a scared kid as he did so, as if it would make any difference at all.


DMG: 9
Charge 1/3 (because he desummoned)  

[Zoobey]

"THE BOSS IS RIGHT HERE," retaliated Mark, mistaking what Rep meant by "boss", doing his best to point behind him. Rep had managed to topple the thing with the brunt of his weapon, it crashed right next to the Death Assistant and it shrieked-

- Mark shrieked, not the oversized spider-

- And whacked one severed leg a few times as someone would a normal spider, very delicately and as far away from reach as possible. Said leg wiggled a few times and then began to soften and liquefy, merging back into the original.

The spider turned around, or it didn't turn exactly as more the legs shifted from its thorax to behind it, bending unnaturally before sprouting more and more legs that grew longer and longer and merged within themselves, spilling outwards. A mouth split from body of the spider as it flattened from the front -

- And as it shifted from shiny black to a very obvious skintone, it began to take on extremely human-like qualities. It looked like a face, then a head, splitting downwards as arms, legs, everything but actual clothing wrapped around it.

This new form didn't exactly look terrifying as it looked more surreall, a goddess made of soft skin and long, long braided black hair. It smiled, towering impossibly tall, reaching a hand to stretch towards Rep, delicate six-feet long fingers picking him up. It made a noise, a strange, soft hum, and the world seemed to slow down entirely until it faded out of existence.

It was white.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

There weren't many things more scary to Rep than snakes, but as the thing changed again it managed to find something that was much, much more terrifying to him. There was something bone chillingly scary to him about the idea of losing everything, even the very memory of being afraid itself that it made his flinch reaction even more intense, picked up without a protest like a silent child deferring in shock to the hand of a parent.

He wanted to swear, he wanted to fight back, but for the second time that day he found himself robbed of all endurance at the hands of fear itself, and simply stared as everything just stopped.

 

[Zoobey]

And when everything unwound, when it stopped being just white, there was no explanation, no experience that could quantify what had happened. Rep simply went from nothing to everything within what seemed like a span of seconds, and there was someone shouting at him - Mark - and slapping him several times to remove the ringing in his ears.

It wasn't ringing, it was roaring, it was buzzing and humming and shrieking at the same time as the her - it - unraveled entirely, piece of piece, flesh thinning into black ashes, hair withering and curling away, coiling within itself again and again and again until the only thing left behind was a marred green crystal, no larger than a fingerprint.

The Death lead wrapped it in a colourless opaque piece of cloth, wrapping it several times in an equally opaque cord. Had he been there all the time? - it was impossible to tell, though Mark was busy yelling something, and then there were two other Hunters that Rep didn't quite recognize shouting at Mark about positioning.

'You did good', whispered a soft voice, and it seemed nobody else heard it except Rep. 'You freed yourself.'

Very subtly, despite nobody else noticing this voice, Caelius's expression flickered from indifferent to irritated, eyes focusing on Rep for a quick second longer before moving away.

-"And spiders," yelled Mark, still agitated. "Where did they even get something like this, how did we lose a piece of it in the first place, I'm still on strike you know, so is Rep."

One of the other Hunters, another Death Hunter it seemed with a notable circle-shaped tattoo on one shoulder rolled their eyes. "If it was the e-mail thing Mark, it didn't work."

"What about the capital i-"

-"didn't work."

Crestfallen, Mark walked over to sit next to Rep. "Work for Death, he said, it'll be great he said." He paused and gave the other an odd look as well, a very peculiar sort of look as if staring at Rep for the first time. "You - you okay?" A pause. "What do you remember?"

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Rep shook his head in response to being slapped, protesting with a few irritable sounds as he regained a grasp of consciousness, as usual his first instinct being to get annoyed at someone else because it was probably their fault. Things fell back into place one thing at a time and in a haze what had happened returned to him, right up to the moment he was grabbed.

He sat up, distantly rubbing his face as he watched the thing disintegrate into a small green something. His brain felt like it was going in slow motion, the yelling, Cael stooping to pick the thing up.

He nodded to the voice in a vague way, not understanding fully the fact that it was something only he could hear but instead feeling strangely good about the words themselves. It felt good to have done well.

It took much longer for the strangeness of the moment to settle across his shoulders like dread.

Mark was a welcome distraction from the sensation, Mark who was a warm presence in spite of all his efforts to the contrary and who exasperated him in a comforting sort of way. The irritation was a comfortable counterpoint to that strange feeling of dread.

"I told you it wasn't enough to do the stupid email." he said, before interrupting himself, giving Mark a puzzled look, tilting his head like a confused dog. "Er. I think I'm ok. As ok as I ever am. I'm alive, in this line of work that's like the best thing I can think of, hah." he shook his head. "But I don't ******** remember anything. It happens to me sometimes. I saw er.."

He looked over his shoulder at the tall irritable figure of Cael and back to Mark lowering his voice. "I saw Circe I think. And then I don't know. What happened?"

There was the unspoken thanks for saving my life, hanging there in the air between them, but he left it where it was and leaving it right there was in a way his repayment to Mark for doing it in the first place.

 

[Zoobey]

Mark looked at Rep with a strange sort of pity as if he wanted to say something but shouldn't - or rather couldn't. He exchanged glances with the circle-tattooed Hunter who shook their head and used one finger to dramatically cut their throat, pointing at Caelius's retreating figure.

"You uh, passed out," the Death assistant tried to fill in tone rising by the second, "and then we were saved and then it exploded." Theoretically, all these things had happened, just not in any meaningful sequence.

He took a little longer to internalize what Rep had just said, "Oh yeah, the stupid Grail fragment or whatever it was," the other two Hunters were gesturing madly at Mark to shut up, "the original can replicates Fear, which you probably saw. Apparently it was supposed to be mostly harmless but it was stolen and modified, and released it around here and - stop gesturing at me - I know - Rep is a full Hunter he has clearance for this stuff."

"Yeah," said the non-tattooed Hunter next to the first, "but he's Rep."

"He's not going to tell people," Mark assured, and then turned to Rep, "you're not going to tell anyone this right?"

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Rep gave Mark an uncertain sort of look but didn't press too hard as the other hunter seemed to imply some sort of restriction on what the other man could say. He didn't actually want to get Mark or himself in trouble for saying the wrong s**t at the wrong time. It made him a little more anxious though just thinking about it.

He also tried to fill in the gaps himself with his imagination but came up without any answers.

Apparently the green thing had been a grail fragment, which was curious but not something he understood the extent of other than that if this sort of s**t happened in other places that it could do some horrible, horrible things to people. On the brink of asking more questions he clammed up at the insinuation he wasn't trustworthy and couldn't keep his mouth shut, even in the face of Mark reminding the guys that he was entitled to know things.

"I don't tell people s**t that's classified." he said.

Zoobey

 

[Zoobey]

"Err, yeah, this is definitely classified," Mark responded, misinterpreting Rep's response, "I mean pretty much if you think it'll get some trainee dead for oh, I dunno, blowing themselves to bits again, then it's probably classified. Or getting infected. Or both."

Unlike his lead, Mark could sometimes be thoughtful. "I mean there was this one time, I forgot who it was, but they touched like five things at once and not only did they get the weirdest STD I've ever seen but-"

- There was a searing white flicker of light, and then the sky visibly darkened, reddening as a flare of red crackled in the distance, fanning out. Mark seemed just as surprised as the other two Hunters and Rep, and it wasn't until moments later that the sound caught up, a deafening roar that blasted across the field, pressure snapping thinner trees in half, debris scattering all directions and sending Hunters plummeting backwards across the clearing.

Everything was ringing; there was a thick ash and smoke covering even the skies. A shadow, coughing, ran towards Rep, while two others, the other accompanying two also found him.

"We- need - go," the voice sounded tinny, coming from the tattoo Hunter. "We have - check - out." It seemed like they knew where they were going, as they plunged one direction, shadow quickly receding.

Mark was still catching his breath, alternating between coughing and shaking his head. It took a fair bit of effort but he finally managed to wrap his scarf over his mouth. "You go - I - I need to catch my breath."

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

"Then I won't mention it to anyone." Rep said gravely. As much as he liked to talk, he was almost paradoxically a private man, riddled with strangely contradictory factors ranging from his crude nature set against his almost prudish habits to his sense of loyalty against his selfishness. "I'm capable of it, I have self restraint and s**t, even if it doesn't seem like it to most people."

He flinched as the sky flashed and was duly followed by a shockwave that knocked everyone back and off their feet. His ears rung and he stumbled through the ensuing chaos in an unnatural silence, twigs and leaves still drifting oddly to the ground. He was sure he swore a few times, but he couldn't hear it at all.

His first instinct wasn't his own welfare and it almost never was, instead in the wake of the retreating hunters he turned to look for Mark, finding the man nearby trying to sort himself out. He had his own face buried into his scarf and shook his head.

"Naw." he said, defiant. "Come on."

As much as Mark seemed like someone who had cockroach levels of survival skills, he wasn't about to leave the guy in the middle of what ******** felt like a miniature Armageddon.

"The guys went this way."

Zoobey

 

[Zoobey]

"Do I have to?" About five begrudging steps forward, Mark suddenly realized he was still wearing his hat and finally pulled his goggles down. They fit terribly.

A few more steps and what sounded like several firecrackers going off; it was nearly impossible to tell in the smoke, though the auditory cues were more than obvious. The dust and debris were beginning to clear, leaving a thinner layer of grey smoke and the smell of something burning. A dim orange glow could be seen in the distance.

"Wait," Mark suddenly grabbed a hold of Rep's coat, "shouldn't we you know, like be moving away from explosions? I mean I can't possibly imagine anything good happened th- get down."

Before Rep could actually move, the Death Assistant grabbed a hold of Rep and pushed him into some lightly seared foliage. There was a loud roar above, different from the sound of the explosion, and then the unmistakable roar of helicopter fanblades. Three military-grade vehicles passed directly above them without stopping, though gunshots could be heard as they progressed from its low descent back into the air.

Mark's goggles were just flat out drooping off his face as he stood up, and waved towards another Hunter also taking cover. They signaled something to Mark, who gestured back. "God that was close. Way too close. We shouldn't have gone so far in." His mood took a darker turn. "They make freaking Umbrella corp look like good guys."

He turned around to signal something else to the other Hunter - who was simply standing there one minute and gone the next. While this was a pretty common Death Hunter trait, Mark looked pretty miffed, until he turned to look at Rep, eyes wide-

- And this would be, for the record, the third time today that Rep was fully knocked, or rather, tazed, out of consciousness.

It was dark when Rep woke up. The ground was cold, firm, and felt like extremely solid concrete, which was painfully obvious as he was being physically yanked by one dislocated arm on the ground. His side hurt, and if he examined it would notice it was still freely bleeding, a very, very precise incision half-finished trailing from his ribs downwards. Every single movement of being crudely pulled caused him to bleed excess, it was impossible to tell who was dragging him, or perhaps more the fault of the angle, nearly face-down, that he was being dragged by.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Rep had his own goggles on, even if they were designed for snow they worked just fine here for keeping s**t out of his eyes. He wasn't sure where they even were or why they'd walked into what felt like a very dangerous ******** battlefield. Even his artifact-enhanced night vision couldn't see though fog and smoke, so he was left helplessly guessing. Beyond that something was on fire in the distance he couldn't tell what exactly was going on.

He was about to say that moving away from the explosions is exactly the decision he would have made if someone hadn't told him otherwise when he was pulled down, swearing mutedly instead, looking anxiously overhead as helicopters filled the world with their sound. He mouthed the words "the ********" as he did so. There were a lot of things their weapons could endure but he didn't think that prolonged military gunfire was one of them.

"No s**t." Rep said to Mark. "What the ******** was that? Is it the guys who had the Grail before?" The main thing he'd remembered about them was that they had been able to sidestep his shield as if it wasn't there at all, something he'd found deeply deeply concerning.

Marks expression was also concerning, and before he could wait for an answer he moved to turn and everything went black.

When he woke up, he immediately wished that he hadn't, being dragged like so much dead weight, his arm screaming with pain as he was. ********, his ******** arm, he needed his arms to fight, he needed both his arms to effectively wield Tracey. There were other pains and he found he needed to check it wasn't all just a result of whatever had happened to his arm, reaching his other arm as best he could to investigate, finding nothing but thick warm blood and clots marking where he'd been cut.

He wanted to groan, to ask where the ******** he was and what had happened to him but was immediately wary that doing so would get him knocked out again.

Zoobey

 

[Zoobey]

There was this strange clicking and hissing noise behind him, growing closer. If Rep craned his head just slightly, he could see a darker shape slowly edging towards them, just the tips of a strange, squirming shadow. He could also see an impressive trail of blood he was leaving behind and an even more impressive small collection of bodies to the left and right of him, several of them missing various limbs in a state of recently deceased. They were all wearing some strange grey uniform, and a few of them were holding what looked like red runic weapons.

The most alarming thing, as he phased into more consciousness, was the inability to talk to his weapon. It was similar to the horsemen prisons, a Fear-suppressing cage that affected anything within it.

Gunshots suddenly from ahead, and whomever was holding Rep unceremoniously dropped him like dead weight. There was what sounded like a very light scuffle, then someone's strangled shout, maybe a cry of warning, and then a second person also cut short.

Whatever was stalking them from behind was coming closer too, eyes upon eyes upon eyes visible in the murk: though the odder question of if the place did suppress Fear, how was the thing still moving?

Silence. Whomever was dragging Rep may have been whisked away giving him the perfect opportunity to try to escape.

Baneful

REP HAS 50 stamina.

Due to his steady blood loss, every time you make a post in this thread, roll 1d10 to see how much stamina he loses. If he hits 0 he passes out!

 

[Baneful]

Rep did what he could to get himself oriented in a way where he could focus on surviving this ******** nightmare. He tried not to move too much and to get a bearing on his surroundings, feeling a cold finger of dread along his spine at the discarded bodies by the wayside. He was determined not to end up like them and instinctually reached out for Tracey, expecting the fallen angel to be there, ready to be summoned the way he always was, part of their deeply entwined team.

There was nothing, and the void took his breath away more than the blood loss had. Something was stopping him and without his weapon he was human, bleeding possibly to death if he didn't look out. He was fragile and vulnerable, just a few heartbeats away from the bodies around him.

When he was dropped, he didn't hesitate, trying to get the hell away from the thing whose persistent and slow onward movement tapped into something in Rep that made him just want to run. He rolled over and tried to get to his feet, gasping sharply as he clutched his side. When he was up, he moved as fast as he was able to on wobbly legs away from the ******** clicking thing.

STAMINA - 47
 

[Zoobey]

The first room he passed by down the hall was torn wide open, three, maybe four people dressed in lab coats, a strange mimicry of the Life Labs, draped over a corpse lying on the examination table, still tied up.

The second nearly adjacent from it had the same setup, this time lacking any specimen. It seemed whomever was responsible for that room had tried to flee, files scattered all over the ground. Some had familiar names: Gale, Lucky, Quinn, William, even Mark and Caelius. Half-clutched in the victim's hand was what looked like a phone, still attached to a hard drive via USB.

The eyes were still nearing, and there was only silence up ahead.

Baneful