Of the worm
Not of man
Formless, faithless
And free
Intricate entity" - Samhain
"The fighters are assembling my Q-Bee." The ominous figure said to the kneeling insect queen. He had a carefree smile, the sort of blissful smile a deity such as he was was wont to wear. He was, after all, the savior of the universe.
"Like rainbow sheep to the slaughter, no? Each one a different color of greed, selfishness, and loneliness. Even the ones who wear the monikers of good, do so with such interesting sins. Am I rambling? Sorry." He took a small sip from his wine glass, which swirled in his hands as calmly as it's holder.
Q-Bee was busy keeping a look of icy indifference on her face. Her race, although dwindling evermore, had found an ally in Jedah, who promised the brood a thousand feasts in exchange for their loyalty. The always opportunistic queen agreed. Her eyes, however, held a sort of hopelessness in them, as one would expect from a queen forced into the role as a mere second banana. She continually reminded herself of her reward after this mess was finished.
By the time Zabel had reached entrance of castle Doma, Le Malta had estimated it had taken them roughly fifteen minutes. Ungodly amounts of time were saved thanks to Le Malta's nifty ability to teleport across vast lands. Zabel's demonic heart pumped what could be said was pure adrenaline and power into his undead veins. His typically lecherous smile reached possessed heights as he gleefully walked into the foreboding castle.
"GOD DAMN IT!" A gutteral shout tore through the uneasy silence. His fist exploded into a nearby pillar, small bits of rock bouncing off the frightened Le Malta's rubbery head.
Much to his dismay, the arcane and powerful opponent he had conjectured and relished in destroying was naught. Greeting him were the either the confused or uneasy faces of the rest of the Darkstalkers. He felt like the victim of a stupendous prank, that in some room he was being mocked and giggled at by the aforementioned opponent. He was to say the least, quite displeased.
"Bollocks to this! I'm findin' the bastard in charge and doin' what I came to do, right and proper! You miserable little sods can all die for all I car-." He said turning his head towards the waiting Darkstalkers as he stomped angrily towards what appeared to be the door to the main chamber, and hopefully the wizard behind the curtain.
"-Uh!" He exasperated as his whole body experienced a shock of no small magnitude upon his touching of the door handle. Booby-trapped of course.
"What the-! You goddamn coward, I'll tear you to ribbons!" He shouted at the unknown force, and maybe a little at the door for good measure.
Morrigan Aensland, who had previously watched Zabel's tantrum with watchful amusement, quickly grew bored with the uproarious demon and decided to stop him.
"It's no use, it seems our host, Jedah, will only make his arrival when all of the Darkstalkers have appeared. The remaining Darkstalker is my 'sister' as it were, Lillith" she spoke with visible tints of annoyance.
"Jedah?" Zabel inquired, his wounds healing with remarkable speed. This was to be attributed to his half-demon side, something Zabel took great pride in. His rage subsided, although distracted would be the more appropriate word.
Morrigan sighed and prepared to retell the lore surrounding the youngest of the Makai lords. She spoke to him of rise, fall, and subsequent ressurection, followed by his awakening as the self-decribed savior of the demon world and the human world. His plan, she said, was to gather all the souls as one into a fetus of gargantuan size and dimension. To gain power for it, he would use the souls of Darkstalkers, and in order to get them he arranged a tournament, the losers of which would be fed to his fetus as nutrition. This greatly displeased our uproarious shark of Makai, a furious death rock concert burning inside him.
"What!...Nobody, but nobody tries to before he gets his hands on this piece of Austrailian meat! Grade bloody A, babe!" He yelled upwards at the ceiling, finger extended and pointed at the omnipotent Jedah. "Come out here and get one in yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou!"
"If you are not so willing to relinquish your soul..." a deeply reverberated and gravelly voiced beckened, "then perhaps your blood would be a better sell?"
Zabel shot a dark look at the speaker, who was revealed as the accursed samurai Bishamon. This was actually a misnomer, as it was actually the hate armor Hannya, and the blood-drinking sword, Kien, along with a makeshift body made of lost souls. The true Bishamon had long been released from his captor's grip, although he now sought the evil things in order to seal their malice. Zabel snarled, his anger rising to a boil.
"Well, come on then. We musn't delay Death's caress, must we?" Bishamon sat up from his former sitting Indian position, his sword raised and his free hand giving the "Come over here" gesturing. Zabel had been challenged. Morrigan grinned her crafty grin. It was on.
"...Alright, fine you asshole, you DIE!" He shouted, and almost immedietly exploded into his zombie form. Not counting his clothes or bluish skin tone, the zombie form was almost completely unrecognizable from his normal human form. His new form gave his own salute to the opponent: an outraised middle finger.
"Showtime!"
Zabel almost instinctively jumped into the air, his right leg burning bright before releasing a sword-like appendage at the charging Bishamon. Bishamon was no fool, and was able to stop himself; Zabel's sword-leg landing just in front of Bishamon. When Zabel landed, he was met face-to-face with evil samurai.
"So, Ozom's little doggie wishes to bite with his bark then, does he?" The Bushido demon taunted with a deep laugh. He swung his sword with such speed and skill that to most it was a brief flash of light, as some alien sort of blood spurted from Zabel's incision. His ability to feel physical pain was left behind after his rebirth, and this is perhaps the only truth in his zombie nature.
Bishamon's comments would have normally fueled the demonzombieghoul's fury, and inadvertently fueling his power. However, Zabel's face wore only his trademark lecherous grin. Inside his vicious album of bloodlust a plan was emerging. He took a step back, his right leg outstretched and his left bending into a sort of squat position.
"Don't worry overmuch, mate. Ya can't help losing to master of Makai, man!" He shouted, ending with his nigh-trademark howlings of laughter.
A spear jutted from his elbow as he smashed his fists together. The spear extended with suprising speed and fluidity, bolts of electricity dancing around it. Bishamon braced himself, preparing to either defend or perish.
"Aiiiiiieeeyiiiiii!"
"Ow...ow...don't put your bloody sharp-ass boots there!" grumbled our eternally cursed protagonist, trying in vain to keep as much face as possible given the circumstances.
"Hehe, sorry!" Lillith said with a mix of embarassment and giggling joy over the faux pas.
Much to his dismay (Yet again), he had positioned himself right under the falling Lillith, who had happened to crash through the castle roofs and onto the self-confessed master of demons just as he was about pull off an almost guranteed victory. To add injury to insult, shehadplaced her quite pointy boots in just the right position to dig into Zabel's back.
"Ha! If I'd known a petty succubus girl could best you, then I wouldn't need to waste my little Kien on your pathetic zombie flesh." spoke the confidant and amused samurai. He resumed his former sitting position, and sheathed his sword, chuckling all the way.
A shadow soon blotted out a part of the sky in the distance...blazing ever so closer and closer. Simply with the high-pitched laughter that was announcing it's arrival, one could tell that the ever-so-lovely maniac named Jedah was coming to play.
Swooping over the two combatants, Jedah stopped on a dime, completely in mid-flight, just hovering there...his wings not even moving, just seeming to have his feet anchored to the very oxygen in the air, standing there and peering down at the two with his wide-open-and-tiny-pupiled eyes.
His right hand was stuck in his pocket casually, almost as if he did this every day. In his left hand was a small glass goblet, with a small bit of red, thick fluid inside. It didn't take a genius to figure out what it was. Jedah quickly rose the goblet up, nodding down at the two, then put it to his mouth, drinking all that was inside. Afterwards, he started to laugh, not even swallowing, the blood spurting out of his mouth in a sick fountain, falling down to the ground below and splattering onto the Lord of all Raptors, Bishamon, and Morrigan's forlorn sister. His left hand clenched suddenly, the glass shattering in his hand and stabbing outwards, impaling straight through his hand and sputtering more blood out. But Jedah continued to laugh, ignoring it all--truly a maniac.
"AAAAHAHAHAHAHA! GENTLEMEN, gentlemen, gentlemen...how fine it is to see you all again!" He finally managed to regain his composure at the last 'gentlemen', lifting up his glass-impaled hand to his face, clutching his cheek slightly, ignoring the stabs of more glass going straight through his flesh and muscles. "Now, I'm sure you're not all too happy to see me, so I'll just toss off a quick 'fuck you' and get right to the point, hmmm? The tourney is over...and only the winners remain. The losers, alas, poor souls...they were not fit to survive. So, their souls..." His eyes grew wide again, the pupils shrinking once more as a twisted grin ran across his bloody mug. "Their souls...eeehehehe...they will go inside THE BABY! The new messiah! The savior of ALL THE REALM! They were not fit to live, but why can't they serve us in their death! A saving slaughter, a messianic massacre, this is...PERFECTION! This world will be MINE!" He tore the hand away from his face, tearing off a bit of his cheek with it, leaning his head back in pure, insane, mentally-impaired laughter, his deranged shrieks of humor echoing around the castle.
After Zabel had finished wiping the blood off his face, he shouted towards to the Dark Messiah, "Oi, you think ya can just tell the emperor what to do, huh!"
Jedah's eyes turned to the loud demon, smiling. "Emperor, so you say? Tell me then, of what do you rule?"
Zabel smiled triumphantly, "Why, Hell of course!" He finished with a guffaw.
Jedah's face immedietly grew into a mix of shock, horror, and terror. The situation was graver than he had thought, if this, this, thing could somehow be made ruler. No matter, once this was over all things would come to one, and the world would finally breathe a sigh of relief. Yes, no point in worrying over what will no longer be.
Jedah quickly regained his calm grin, saying "Well then your majesty! Surely a noble of your stature will have qualms about vanquishing those who are obviously no match for your royal grace and prestige!"
The room then filled with the snickers and chuckles of several of the Darkstalkers, all of them sensing Jedah's sarcasm. Zabel menanced at everyone in the room, grabbing Le Malta. He quickly shoved his fist down our poor protagonist's mouth, a chainsaw made from Lord (Or would it be Emperor now?) Raptor's very unholy bones shooting out from Le Malta's, ahem, let's say very vunerable end. Zabel raised Le Malta above his head, pulling his relucatant sidekick's left arm a good length, to further emphasize the chainsaw theme. This was simply the Le Malta Chainsaw, not to be confused with the Ultimate Undead move, which fully reliquished any power that he had yet to bring forth in exchange for the very little sanity and control he had.
"Come on, all of ya! I'll rip out your friggin' entrails, you bloody motherfu-" He shouted, menancing his weapon until he was cut off by a giggling Jedah.
"Please, please, Zabel." He regained his composure, his infuritaing smile still showing through. "'Twas only a foolish jest by a jestering fool, I assure you. Now, if you'd like to use your fury in a more productive manner, one that will yield unmatched glory and prizes, then please put away that silly contraption. I'm quite sure that your friend can't be enjoying it."
Zabel stopped the bone-saw's whirring, and then grabbed Le Malta, pulling him off quickly. Le Malta had an look of confusion and embarassment, although he did not say a word of protest or rebellion in fear of what the vicious ruler might do to him directly. Zabel calmed down, his face turned towards Jedah.
"Fine, go ahead, but I'm makin' damn sure when I'm through with you it'll look like a slaughter house exploded!" He shouted towards the floating demi-god.
"Shaking, defienetly. Now that our emperor has had his rage calmed for this second, allow me to say...LET THE GAMES BEGIN!" He annouced, his right arm shooting towards the sky, some kind of maroon lightning shooting from his fingertips. At that instant, the ground beneath the Darkstalkers crumbled, causing them all to fall down into the subterranean hell that Jedah had devised for them from the start.
"Good luck to you all! I can't wait to mutilate the victor's body like so much screaming victims! Arrivederci!"
Zabel immedietly grabbed Le Malta, hoping to use him as either a crude parachute, or worst-case scenario; a last ditch cushion for the fall.
"Your death is gonna be awesoooooooooooooooooom-!" He shouted before entering the strange battlefield.
End Chapter 2
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