TITLE: THE UNNATURALS
AUTHOR: Sandbat, aka Redwolf on the Hellbound Web forums, aka numb3r5ev3n on LiveJournal.
GENRE: Dark Fantasy, Horror.
RATING: R, may or may not get into NC-17 territory. We'll see. Anything sufficiently naughty will probably go up on adultff.
PAIRING: Eventually Kirsty Pinhead/Elliott.
SPOILERS: The whole Hellraiser series up to Hellseeker and Deader, as well as the film Nightbreed. I'm going to try to combine the continuities of the films and the comics as much as I can. The events that transpired in the two-part comic book miniseries Hellraiser vs. Nightbreed - Jihad will play a pretty big role.
THE "PLEASE DON'T SUE" DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters within this story are the inventions of Clive Barker. Clive Barker is utterly made of awesome, and I am on pins and needles awaiting the release of The Scarlet Gospels as I write this. I would also like to acknowledge the talents of the wonderful writers and artists who worked on the Hellraiser andNightbreed comic books, particularly D.G. Chichester and Paul Johnson. However, because I am such a huge Michael Moorcock fan that it eventually shows up in everything I do, there will be certain characters and situations in this story that are inspired by his works, as well. We may also be crossing over into the "Rengaverse" on occasion.
SUMMARY: Following her most recent brush with the Cenobites, Kirsty discovers that there are other beings, and other tribes, that thrive in darkness…
PRELUDE: THE DANCER ON THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS.
(TIME: About 200 years ago)
The Dancer abided in the lowest depths of Hell's Labyrinth, chained and confined within a pit at the very bottom of the deep channel directly beneath Leviathan's axis. He could hear a call, somewhere out beyond the Schism - some addle-brained, half-trained sorcerer, more than likely. Someone who was using the Old Ways - the Chanting, the Fire and the Blood. They were calling, calling for him.
Well, he was going, and damned if he was going to let new Laws of Hell, or the constraints of a little puzzle box tell him differently. This opportunity was too good to miss - and the poor sorcerer, whoever they were, was about to get way more than they had bargained for. He'd had his fill of Hell's new masters, and their recent and increasingly disturbing shift towards Order. And Hell had been especially dull of late without his beloved sister for company.
They'd shackled and bound him, thinking it would keep him where they wanted him – but in truth, he'd just been biding his time, waiting for a moment such as this.
His escape proceeded with a bang, as he exploded upward through through the grate at the mouth of the pit, past his sister's Clowns (who sat nearby, dicing with the knuckle bones of a bygone victim) and the Acolyte who'd been commanded to guard them all for that Cycle. Leering down at the Cenobite, The Dancer took hold of the nearest wall and began to climb, flowing viscously up the flat, gray stone almost faster than the guard's startled black eyes could follow.
"The Dancer is escaping!" The cry rang out, and was nearly drowned in the thrumming drone that was Leviathan's breath. It shook the walls in certain places, making the already-perilous climb that much more difficult. The Dancer relished the challenge. One was supposed to embrace experience, and the lessons that suffering had to impart, yes?
The Cenobites held that he was as outmoded and antiquated as his sister's Clowns. They had suggested - politely and subtly first, but with increasing insistence - that he and all of the other Old-Guarders conform to the new ways, to the stale doctrines of their Order. He spat his contempt out at all of them - the miserable upstarts! So what if decades within the realms of Chaos amongst the humans had endeared him to the randomness and disorder that they so despised? How dared they presume to pass judgment upon him?
He grinned toothily through nearly a dozen orifices as a chains began to strike the wall around him (and parted his substance of his being briefly in order to allow one to strike the wall through him at one point, in mockery of their efforts) criss-crossing the chamber as he leaped from wall to wall, from landing to archway, and back again. He even used the chains to hasten his ascent in some places, speeding up the links as effortlessly as a spider would have maneuvered its web. He was still climbing long after any mere human would have died from the strain, in as much time as an average specimen of that endlessly amusing species would have needed to walk across a room.
Finally, he reached the summit - the uppermost passageway nearest to Leviathan's spin - and pulled himself up and over; allowing the shifting dark matter that composed his body to settle into what was more or less a solid, bipedal form. Whoever was doing the Calling had a skin ready, and he could already feel himself beginning to fill it, to conform to its boundaries. No matter. He would countenance such an indignity if it meant leaving the Labyrinth behind for good. He raised his appendages in a gesture of triumph, and turned his hundreds of eyes up to his father's flawless, diamond face.
Another form, massive in her Hellish splendor, advanced upon him, deftly bringing a huge double-headed ax to bear. The Dancer bowed mockingly as the mightiest and most sadistic of the Cenobites – Merkova, if he remembered correctly – moved to cut him down.
"You've given us a fine diversion, Dancer,"she sneered at him through her bony muzzle, "But your game is now at an end,"
"My game is just beginning," the Dancer promised her, before turning back to the entity which had spawned him. "Goodbye, father," he shouted - and then he was phased over before Leviathan's back beam or Merkova's ax could strike him. Merkova's roar of rage was deafening, but the god's impudent spawn was already gone. He'd blinked out in a flash, leaving only his sigil - an eight-pointed star, its rays arranged like spokes on a wheel - to hang for a moment in the air where he'd been only a second before, as a symbol of his scorn and the sheer stubborn gall of his will.
He was going Topside.