You're It [Kansuke's Awakening]

Shit. Shit. Shit.

His feet screamed, begging him to stop, but the shouts rounding the corner promised no relief. Kansuke ripped down the alley with ragged lungs, stumbling as he tried to look behind him.

Where had they come from? How did they find him!?

He couldn't stop to ponder. The same panic that sparked in his breast when the officers caught him tagging the wall now struggled to keep him running. Keep him moving. If they caught him - if they knew it was him...

"There he is!"

Kansuke swore. Run. Run! Just keep moving...!

It was a chilly cold night, at this time of dark most had retreated into their homes, only but a few shops would be open,the post lights dimly lit the dark alleys of the BackLight district. There was no reason for someone to roam the streets of the district at the moment, especially its most isolated areas. Yet a rebellious soul was out, vandalizing the walls inspired by the Troupe of the Playhouse.

Now chased by two figures in cop attire, he ran for a while but eventually he'd found himself at a dead end. The cops approached, the seemed to limp and drag themselves more than walk.


One of the officer's spoke, licking his lips while staring intently with his deep and hungry eyes, his mouth watered with a putrid liquid. Upon closer inspection Kansuke would notice these weren't regular cops, their flesh was dead and rotten with the intense smell of spoiled meat filling the air and their corpse shambling and with blood dripping. Their eyes emitted a yellow glow as well. They weren't natural creatures and they hungered for the young man's flesh.

He had nowhere to run, death seemed almost certain. Until something within the walls of his mind began to call out for him, struggling and slamming around to get out, the results of a seed planted long ago...

Kansuke hit the wall before he could stop himself, feet skidding and breath spurting from his lungs before he could hang onto it. Stopping quashed the last spark of life in his legs, causing him to slide back-first against the corner, staring into the dark, sizing up the two silhouettes that shambled his way. His head hurt to look at them. Had they been the same cops who found him? Surely not - and yet here they were, limping for their exhaustion, gasping and groaning as they finally caught up to the lanky youth's pace.

Then one stepped into the light, and exhaustion twisted into desperate fear. Kansuke saw the bits of flesh peeling away from the officers, sloughing from fattened cheeks in bits and chunks, the wild, hungering yellow eyes and the grasping claws that held onto firearms as pure decoration. "Dere he iz..." rasped one.

Kansuke pressed himself uselessly back against the wall, trying to push through it. He made to stand, but his legs gave out, begging for rest. His breath shortened, instinct promising him that there would be no arrest here. No chance to surrender. No pleading for mercy. No escape.

No escape...




His head nearly exploded. The concussion, the impact - whatever it was, some new voice of madness gouged at the crack in his skull, crawling over his mind in wheezing cackles. His eyes bulged and squeezed from their sockets, blazing brilliant, hateful yellow.


Kansuke slammed his hands to the sides of his head, moaning agony, squeezing his skull shut to keep the voice in. The pressure contained its nauseating ripple throughout his body, resonating with every bone and fibre.


Rebellion? Credit? Was that the point...? Kansuke shrank from the accusation, falling to his knees. Burning irons lurched from the concrete, latching onto his wrists, dragging the madman to his prison on the ground, curled as a shameful child.

"I do..." he whimpered. "I do!"

All at once, the pain subsided. A purposeful clarity washed through him, though Kansuke remained bound. The voice continued, clear as ever, shrouding his head with swirling dark and grasping jaws.


Once more, he opened his eyes. Through the stitched mask of a monstrous executioner's hood, Kansuke saw Endymion for the nightmare it was. Lips caked with spit cracked into a maddened grin. He wrenched himself to his feet, chains shrieking, burning, straining to keep him down.

"You talk too much... but you're right."

He stared at his hands. Shackled. Shaking. Afraid. Such was the extent of his might.

He spat. No more. "It's time to stand proud!"

Kansuke ripped the shackles from the earth, loosing a ferocious howl of azure flame, a pillar of light shearing through Endymion's dark, burning away shadow, shame, and that rotten society that demanded he stay under-heel.



The light faded, returning the alley to dark. In its depths lurked the beast that Kansuke wore, the savage cloak given life and fury by the twitch of the wind. Jagged, slavering teeth split as a maw at the neck of his cloak and the chains that bound the boy, the man now shaped into a dreadful axe fused with a wicked length of scorched iron, grasped in both hands. The hangman's noose and executioner's blade made into one gleeful horror.

Lurking behind his mask, Kansuke grinned. The world split and filled with colour, as did the lumbering bulk that hunched overhead. Twice his size, pinned by the walls and roaring at the two lurching undead stalled by his awakening, Monster rippled and swelled with and ichorous rainbow, stitched limbs swelling with sickening, vivid colour.

He gave his axe a playful twirl, and in response his Monster leaned forward with a bubbling snarl. "You'd best start running, freaks. It's time someone showed you what a real monster looks like!"

Metal clad feet hammered against the ground as Revenant ran after the rotting policemen, blade at the ready. Normally he wouldn't have intervened with the police as they worked, but these were not real officers - they felt wrong, they looked wrong, they WERE wrong. Someone was about to die if he left this alone, because those were demons if he had ever seen them.
He just had to hope he wasn't too late.

A figure trapped against the wall came into sight, the rotting men taking aim at him - but before he could get a good look, they burst into azure flame in a sight that was becoming all too familiar.
Another awakened to their persona. They'd survive, possibly not ever needing his help...but for the crime of not dying, the government would now deem them a criminal.
...well, he couldn't stop here.

Revenant cut along the back of one of the shambling officers, crossing over to stand by this new PT. "Greetings. I see you've already had your inauguration to your power." He takes a stance by him, gripping his blade tighter. "Take this as a chance to learn to use it."

With the power surge, the walking corpses backed away fro a moment...

Zombie A, Lvl 5:

Zombie B, Lvl 5:

Kansuke let loose a low growl. First, his eyes open to the grim world rotting under the skin of Endymion, and now this... trading card character of a knight carved a path to his side? What a night.

He snapped the axe back to his hand, face obscured as he regarded the shadowed knight. The teeth decorating the maw at the neck of his cloak flexed and grasped in time with his words, as if they spoke for him. "And who're you, bossin' me around?"

Kansuke spat. Never mind the knight. If he got in the way of his rapturous ripping onto the rotten stage, he'd be next. Zombies... easy enough. Aim for the head. He span the axe on its chain, its blade howling and sparking as it bit into the concrete. He loosed it with a grunt, aiming to lash the weight down onto the nearest zombie's head.

Kansuke attacks Zombie A with his weapon!
Dexterity Attack: 20 Slash Damage
Hit Roll: Miss on 9

Random number (1,10) :

1

Crit Roll: Crit on 1

Random number (1,10) :

9

Great...it was Wicked's angsty, obstinate cousin. He perhaps almost should have expected this, but he had hoped he wouldn't be in this situation. "Your alternatives were to let them kill you, or let me deal with them for you. I had figured you would at least want to have an idea how to defend yourself."
No matter.
Chains sprung up and interlaced over Revenant's body, seeking to drag him down, before he swept out and shattered them all. A ghostly figure with an upturned scythe loomed over the shambling creatures, ready to strike them down. "View me as you will, but I only intend to aid you."

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Kansuke leapt backwards, but not fast enough! The zombie smashed into him with a heavy thud, causing him to stumble back with a snarl. No real damage, but they weren't playing around...!

"Alright. You've been screeching up here," he grunted, rapping his skull with his free hand. He looked up to Monster, pulsing and writhing against the walls of the alley, "Show me what you're good for! PERSONA!"

Monster obliged. The stitches clasping its mouth shut burst open, and a gout of flame washed over the shambling dead!

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"Now that's more like it!" Kansuke's voice sang with a wicked grin as he spurred Monster on, loosing a second sea of flames down the alley to scorch the dark and the undead!

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Two smoldering heaps. Kansuke's cloak flickered, disturbed by the rush of hot winds and the fidgeting chain of his weapon, obfuscated by his garb. He looked to the strange Revenant, the teeth of his robes clenching together. It almost looked like a grin. Almost.

His voice ripped out over the crackle of embers. "I'm gonna finish this. You coming?"

Whether he did or not, Kansuke lunged forward, axe a-twirling. He hacked and slashed with blind rage, each strike a release of fear and directionless rage!

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Among the roasted corpses Kansuke would notice a shining object, it was a SMG and came with a single clip. Where the Zombie had acquired it is a mystery...

Spoiler:

With one last rising cut, Revenant's greatsword came to rest behind his back in one hand as the last of the opposition fell. To think, he was scared the first time he came across a demon...
This was easy. Hardly worth any terror.
The other person here, though, seemed out of breath. It was almost strange to see, after what he'd become accustomed to from others with the power.
"Simple enough." His weapon faded into the ether as the knight turned to face the vandal. "With that done...I'll spare asking you if you know of the Playhouse, after the broadcast. I would invite you to stop by - at least one of our regular visitors has taken to drinking the alcohol."
"Regardless...how are you taking to this? I have seen...mixed, reactions to people's first encounters."

Kansuke relaxed, lurching away from the smoldering, sundered remains of the zombies and leaning against the nearest wall. He'd never swung an axe before, but the chained blade sat so readily, so naturally in his hand that he didn't question its place there.

He caught his breath. The rush of instinct, of power unleashed, began to wear thin, then wear off completely. His robe remained, swallowing him whole, making him look almost formless in the dark except for those coiling, gnashing fangs. He lifted to look at the knight, face inscrutable behind his guise. "Talkin' like you know me... you're one of them, aren't you? Those Playhouse guys on the TV. How'd you know I was here?"