Three days, ago. The prologue was three days ago. Fox is dead, thanks to a cardiac arrest. Who has taken over then?

Chapter 1: New skin

'So cute.' he comments dry.

'Wha…wha…what is c…cute?' asks the owner terrified standing on the opposite side of the grey bricked room, close to the exit.

He grins, revealing a set of abnormal gory fangs, already sharpened by something asymmetric, since all sides have milled edge.

He reacts rather casual. 'Simply said; your reactions. The questions in your heads. The thoughts, the things you couldn't do at all, and never will. Your children, family, wife, husband, boyfriend or girlfriend!' He can't hold back a subcutaneous laughter. 'You'll never see them again.'

'Why? W...why are doing this?' asks the owner stumbling over his own words.

'The road to perfection is long.' answers the person. 'This is only one step in the right direction.'

Suddenly, a loud scream is heard from outside the room they are in.

'Muhahaha... It seems someone appreciates my work.' claims the person cocky.

Outside the dark room, being a freezer in which everyone was brought together, stands a slight obese, rich aunt-like poodle dressed in red, partly in a puddle of blood. Her entire body shakes as she watches in agony how blood seeps out of the cracked open skull of the to the wall nailed cashier. An arrow was used. Two customers, lying dead on the floor have undergone the same ruthless treatment. One has been bend in such an inhumane way that he looks more like a chair than an actual person. The other is having a drink and a snack in the vending machine on the other end of the room, with his head smashed through the glass. The metal coils that rotate to release the snacks and drinks have borrowed their way into his.

As if the perpetrator sees through the poodle's eyes, his grin becomes all-embracing as he strokes the black bow on his back.

*You did well, Spawn.* he thinks. The pentagram glows red on his head as his sclera fill up with black for a little. The black has a shadowy effect, like small flames they burn from the far sides of his eyes, still too weak to be noticeable. They however stay there while the black in his sclera flows away.

*Huhm, apparently the road is longer than expected. Of no matter* he laughs in himself as he sees a big plus point in it. *More for me to kill...*

Thinking in himself, he turns his face around, towards the frightened employees, the owner who is an anthropomorphic jaguar, two felines and a wolverine. His face focuses onto one of the felines: an extremely disturbed lioness with a blond ponytail, crying. He shows her his teeth to the fullest.

'Come here.' he commands, without opening his mouth, only moving his lips. The lioness quickly shakes her head.

'No!' she cries as she turns herself away. Her friend, the other lioness, tries to stand up for her but sheer fear paralyzes her.

'Feisty eh?' He doesn't really mind that. He had experience with feisty ones in the past. All you need to do, is train them like an animal.

He approaches her and hauls his naked body into the darkness the four innocent workers stand in. He carries a lot more than just his bow. A quiver and a backpack as well. As he comes closer, his feet make a slight plopping sound when they come off the floor. Like a suction cup letting go of what it held before. He leaves a blackened footprint behind, tattooed into the ground after every step. It suggests he burned his way through it on a small level.

Before the lioness has any idea, he stands before her. He grabs her ponytail and throws her onto the ground. The friend of the lioness, a pitch-black cougar with emerald green eyes, whimpers when she hears her smack on the ground and jumps back, holding her arms and paws in front of her in some defensive move. The whimper got her some unwanted attention from him.

'Is there something… you would like to say to me?' he suggests. 'Do… to me? To protect your friend against… me for example?'

The friend quickly shakes her head and backs off into the wolverine who wraps his arms around his waist. It seems they are in love. The wolverine looks, on the contrary of his girlfriend, like he does wanna fight with him if it would come that far. The figure sees there is nothing to gain out of them.

'Like I said: so cute.' He looks at the other feline's facial expression. It reads disbelief. He can also smell a relationship problem. The wolverine and the lioness had something before and the friend took the wolverine. 'And yet so futile.'

As she screams for help and of course from the hideous pain, he drags her towards the only enlightened spot in the freezer; the place where he stood the whole time. The fact that he's naked is thrown into the workers' faces again. The cold of the freezer didn't matter to him at all; the upstanding hairs all over his body will be gone soon... He turns himself and the lioness around, towards the rest.

'Listen!' he speaks loud and clear. 'I appreciate a little resistance. But if only she is the volunteer?' he says whilst pointing at her crying face. 'No, than nothing. You do nothing for her. Standing up for her doesn't even enter you numskull brains. Maybe in yours, the friend, but you too backed off. All you think about is your own shit... that reminds me…' He stops mid-sentence to cringe his left fist together as the thought of three particular persons leaving him one by one. '…of some friends I used to know...' he claims as he licks his lips.

*It was a holy feeling. That slaughter. The look on their faces. Especially Slippy's. Simply unforgettable. Arousing even.*

'Aaaaaah!' he moans, getting off on that vision. But also on the despair, fear and disbelief by everyone standing next to and in front of him. He turns to the lioness he holds down. Her ponytail is still in his inescapable grip.

'What is your name sweetheart, hm?' he inquires on his nicest tonation.

No immediate reaction.

'What is your fucking name!?' he screams as he pulls her face closer to him by tugging her ponytail. The shadow fires on the outer edges of his eyes are growing bigger. Her eyes look away from them and focus on the pentagram that is drawn on his forehead.

'C..Candace...' she stumbles, staring into the forehead-pentagram as if hypnotized by it. Her vision becomes sort of like that of a tunnel. As if the pentagram as all her life was about.

'Candace...' he repeats with an undertone for siting exposition. 'French. I think that the most important woman I once had in my life shared that name. You know where that stands for? Clarity, whiteness, innocence.' He licks his lips again.

'Pl...please, don't hurt me.' she pleads while trying to loosen up his grip on her ponytail.

'Hurt you?' he replies instantaneous and innocent. 'Whahahaha... I'm not gonna hurt you.' He turns her head towards the others. 'They are the ones that hurt you, by not standing up for you. Am I right?'

She nods as she has no other choice. It's true but if she had other options, she would deem that statement as nonsense.

'That's what I thought.' he says, glad that she and he are on one line. He turns her head to his face again. 'Listen, I'm not gonna hurt you. To hurt an innocent girl like you, is still above me. My heart is still too… how do you say that right? Too "good" for that.' He calmly caresses her face and wipes a few tears away. 'You're the only one who understands me...' he whispers in her right ear.

'U...understand you?'

'You cry... as if you know what's going on inside of me...' claims Délarbé suddenly heart-struck. 'You have a gift Candace, you should have shared it. You simply waste it...' he states as his eyes fixates on her neck. Once more, he licks his lips with the cut in half tongue. Something red, starts to appear on the top right of his face, directly under his ear.

'Why do you keep licking your lips?' asks the owner disturbed.

He looks around the freezer and then to the owner. 'You know, I have to admit to get off on despair, fear etcetera... but also because of meat. Fresh flesh. I see you have a lot of it.' he states when looking around again.

'Of course. Otherwise I wouldn't be a butcher.' he says with a slightly annoyed undertone. The figure turns to Candace again.

'Yes, but all that meat around me in this freezer, cannot match the glorious taste of your best example: HER!'

'What!?' cries Candace. The owner tries to jump in when he heard that, to rescue her. But he stops before he even finishes his first step. If he can do all that he has already shown, what kind of horrible things could he do to him?

'Humhumhum, pathetic.' he states chuckling.

RIP! The sound is also clear as it is sickening. It happens quickly, no pain, no hurting her. Just like he promised...

Blood splatters all over the employers standing before the horrendous occurrence. All they can do is watch in horror. The friend can't hold back her puke when the figure chews on the flesh and the arteries ripped from the neck of the lioness. The entire front side is torn out as the figure lets go of her ponytail. She falls to the ground and starts to choke in her own blood, as it fills up her lungs. After a few desperate muscle spasms, the lioness lays on her right side, face towards the owner with open eyes, dead on the freezer floor. Cracking and snapping is heard from the figure's mouth as chews on it with an open mouth, for everyone to see the disgusting mess. He swallows it down.

'Aaaah!' he exhales after he felt gliding down his esophagus. 'That was great... the flesh of the innocent, tastes…' he pause to licks his blood-soaked fingers, one by one. '…absolutely heavenly.' he smirks.

The red that appeared on his head forms the Sigil of Lucifer, the first symbol he has to collect. Red beams again erupt from the ground, with a foreplay of rumbling, and enter the newly formed symbol. The pain is overwhelming, forcing on his knees as more beams and doomed souls enter through the symbol into his mind. The number of red beams start to decrease as the symbol turns into a permanent brand mark in his skull. Not just his fur and skin. A moment later, all red beams cease to exist.

He starts to heave. At first only a little, but when it becomes louder and more disgusting to heard, the awful sound is audible throughout the store. The poodle finally leaves, permanently traumatized. At long last, he vomits up a black blob of goo all over the floor in front of him. It is wrapped in paper thin red weed. He wipes away some spit that was still hanging on to the blob and his lower lip. With a quick turn of his head to the left, the door slams shut. The cooling systems start to work and blow the cold air through the room. It wasn't cold enough already.

The obtaining of the first symbol is no reason to celebrate. It's just the first symbol. He has seen that one so many times. The second one is up. *Next step. The new skin. I cannot operate with innocence and goodness sticking to my body like glue. It must be gone, all of it!* he declares to himself.

'Cleaver.' he demands cold, as if nothing happened. To everyone around him, it was horrible to see. For him, it was daily business.

Again, there is no reaction.

'I said: Cleaver!' he repeats himself agitated. 'Behind you, on the hook, please...'

'Wh..why do you need it?' inquires the owner, trying to find a way to get out. Maybe he could earn the figure's trust and get out of here alive.

'Because, I've been observing you... for over three days... you and other butchers in the area. Analyses showed me, that your cleaver is the sharpest of them all. Now, get it off the hook.'

The owner does as asked. With a shaking paw, he picks it off the hook and turns back to the figure.

'Well done.' he compliments, treating him like a baby. 'Now, place it on the ground and kick it to me.'

'Wh..what if I refuse...?' inquires the owner terrified.

*I just love the try-hards...* thinks the figure as the same smirk appears on his face again. He quickly snatches his blaster from the holster aims it at the owner, while still on his knees. It's Fox McCloud's standard issue blaster. The very same he used in the Aparoid Invasion. He rises from the ground with a bowed head and the visible, all-embracing smirk.

'I'll kill you then. Right after I've taken care of the rest of your employees.'

The owner swallows hard, but doesn't need time to think. He drops the cleaver unto the ground. With a shaking leg, he kicks the cleaver, unintentionally too gentle, towards the figure. The cleaver grinds over the ground with a shrieking noise, but that was all of the "spectacular" action. The cleaver stops halfway in between the figure and the owner.

An artery on the figure's forehead starts to pound as he looks down on the cleaver. Rage fills his eyes when he looks up that owner, expressing that he had no intention to it like that. He doesn't take his word.

'You wanna play dirty?' he asks restrained and eventually much calmer.

'N...no b...but...'

In one swift movement, the aim of his blaster goes from the owner to the wolverine holding the friend of Candace. He fires two shots in quick succession. One hits the wolverine's right shoulder and the other the upper ribcage. The wolverine lets go of his girlfriend and falls down unto the ground with his paws placed on the impacts. He's only alive for a fraction of a second before his last breath leaves his lips. His girlfriend just stands there, looking at what was her boyfriend once. Nothing more than a useless corpse now.

'Need further warning?'

'No..no.' stumbles the owner as kicks the cleaver towards him.

The figure puts his blaster on the ground, glaring at the owner while he bends over to grab the cleaver. With his right paw, he grabs a hold of the cleaver's wooden grip and rises again. He laughs as he forgot about his blaster. He picks it up, all in an unusual calm tempo, frightening for those still alive around him...

'You two, are my guests of honor.' states the figure as he spreads his arms like a preacher in a ceremony.

'G..guests of honor?' verifies the leftover feline.

'First time that I hear you. And yes, my guests of honor.' he confirms, now pointing the blaster at the cougar. 'For my transformation.'

'Transformation?'

'Indeed. The path to perfection is long. Longer than I expected. For my second symbol, I need to change. My fur is a memory, to a pitiful past.' he says while he strokes his left arm with the sharp side of the cleaver.

'A past in which I was a hero, a friend and adored. I left it all behind. My fur and even my skin... all of it must go.' he states with an obsessive undertone, as if he is a raving imbecile. 'That's why I need this cleaver. To cut away all that I hate now.' he states as he start to slowly cut his way through his fur and skin on the left arm.

He takes another look around, to confirm what he thought he had seen. And he was right.

'Those rails…' he inquires while looking at them. 'Do they serve a purpose?'

'Y..yeah. Those are the rails f..for the meat-hooks. Why do you want to know that?'

'Har har, you'll see.' He rises the cleaver from his left arm. 'Cause you, owner, you are gonna help me and you, bitch, you are gonna watch.'

The cougar swallows and nods against the will of every fiber in her body. The owner does the same, but does a small step forward.

'Wh..what am I su..pposed to do?' he asks shivering.

The figure points at the dead Candace. 'You stand next to her. And you… Watch and learn.' he tells the feline.

The owner now stands next the Candace, and right in the puddle of her blood. 'What now?'

Without any emotion, reaction or warning, he throws the cleaver in front of the owner's feet. 'You cut out her flesh of innocence.'

'Her what!?' shouts the owner disgusted.

'You heard me... her hymen. Virgin blood is the best when it's extracted from the part that it symbolizes. She is a virgin, right?'

'N..not that I know...' he says full of relinquish. He feels like he's gonna puke as well.

'Then you best as well check it out...' he says on a threatening tone.

'But how...?'

'Very simple. First you undress her, then cut open the area right above the vagina. It's just like removing the guts out of the slaughtered animals you sell. On a former employee of yours, but still.'

'I...I'm supposed to do that!?'

The figure's blaster cocks and is aimed at the owner's head. 'Are you raising your voice against me?'

'No..I'm just...'

'Then do what I ask. I'll give you some consolation: I won't look when you undress her.'

And indeed, he turns around. His right eyes still glares at him however. With a lot of disgust, he pulls down the lioness' pants. Luckily for him, she wears a slip. It's small enough the reveal the targeted area.

*Pfieuw... geh... I'm such a lucky bastard. I didn't have to dishonor her.* he thinks. *But this is still, so, so very wrong. That I'm even doing this... sigh… For my family then.*

He grabs the now bloodied grip on the cleaver and hacks into the dead Candace. While the figure watches, overjoyed, the cougar can barely look upon the horrible scene. She vomits on the ground, again. This is seen and heard by the figure.

'Owww!' he reacts annoyed as he approaches the panting cougar. 'That's just gross!'

'But... you did the same.' she pants pointing the finger of accusation at the figure. Not a smart choice.

The pounding artery returns and with an immense swing, he claws the cougar face down into her own vomit. He turns around towards the owner, still cutting his way through.

'I think I got it.' claims the owner with a pant in between. Never before felt he this tired from cutting into flesh. But this flesh, used to be his coworker. How he can stay so calm without throwing up himself is a mystery to him. Is he losing it?

'Beautiful.' compliments the figure before suggesting with the blaster that he should move away. The owner steps away from Candace's corpse while the figure bends over her. He helps the cougar up.

'What happened?' he whispers.

'I... I don't know. It all went, so... so fast.' she cries.

In the meantime, the figure bend over the cut open area right above Candace's cut open vagina. His eyes open up wide when finds what he seeks for. Like a cat, he extracts his claws and starts to grab inside of Candace. After some struggle, with the horrible sounds audible from inside the body, he extracts the silky, crescent-shaped, white fleece around the opening of the vagina. It bleeds heavy and therefore the figure knows he must act quick. Hastily, he drops the blaster and starts pouring the blood onto his face, from the nose upwards. He throws the, now useless fleece to him, away and makes an inverted cross on his face with the blood. From his backpack, he grabs a pole that can be enlarged from its otherwise 30 cm appearance. He attaches an empty intravenous bag to it. He grabs one of the two infuses at the end and he plugs it into ripped open carotid artery. The bag starts to fill up with Candace's blood.

'I'm ready for my transformation. The second symbol is close! Perfection is within arms range! lleH eht ot ni eviG! Whahahahahah!' he laughs demonic. Every sentence he spoke, he got louder, harsher and more demonic. An unbearable aura begins to surround him, as if the aura was a presence around the figure. It nerves the leftover workers even more than they did already. After 10 seconds of inglorious laughter, he looks upon the remaining two.

'YOU!' he exclaims at the owner in a distorted black metal voice. 'LOWER THE LEFT RAIL OF MEAT-HOOKS!'

With a press of a button on the back of the wall, a beam, with five hanging meat-hooks comes down. It stops, at the point where the hooks are at his arm's height. He picks up his blaster with his left paw and aims for the owner and the feline again.

'AND THE RIGHT ONE AS WELL!'

Another push of the same button is enough. This one also stops at his arm's height.

'Who are you?' asks the owner after seeing all of this.

'DAMAGED!' he screams as all demonic auras around start to vanish. 'But refer to me as, Délarbé (Day-lar-bay).'

'Thank you for helping me.' he states as he unloads all leftover ammunition in the blaster into the unlucky two.

'I don't need watchers anymore.' he states as he looks up, right into the only light burning in all of the store. His eyes seem to be hardened to withstand the heat, not to mention to the fierceness of the light that radiates from it.

'Somewhere, far away in Lylat, she is thinking about me. Paining her mind about what has happened to me. I wonder if she has seen the news yet... and HOW SHE WILL REACT TO THIS!' he laughs. Calmly whistling a note, he learned from the movie Twisted Nerve, he grabs the first meat-hook, bungling close to his left paw. Psychotically unemotional, he hooks the first one into his skin. Followed by the second, third, fourth and the fifth. Blood seeps out the holes as fires at the button, lifting the beam up. This tightens his skin and fur, stretching it out. He lowers his free right arm and grabs leftover infuse. Without hesitation or any sort of surgical precision, he stabs into his carotid artery, to evade dying from too much blood loss. Still whistling, he cuts away the skin, so far as flesh and bone would allow him to. Blood seeps from his barely opened mouth as it drenches the floor. After 10 minutes, his left arm has no skin of fur left. An area is stripped, as big as the distance from his left shoulder to the fingertip of his middle finger. The meat-hooks on the left retreat as he throws the empty blaster on the button again. He turns to his right arm.

'And now to the next arm...' he states, as if it's daily business. He starts to whistle the same note again, he starts cutting away the skin and fur from his left arm...

Grotesque right? This is possibly the worst, most disturbing scene in the entire story. Be happy you're through the hard part. More crazy shit is on the way...