R&R please!
Disclaimer: Refer to Chapter One of this fanfiction. I don't own Haunting Ground either.
Chapter Five: Haunting Ground Part One, Something
No one heard from Reijin that night so they assumed that she was sleeping and did not bother her in case they invoked her wrath. Cayenne and the others were all allowed to get their weapons that night so they could familiarize themselves with them. Hers was a sword: the end of the blade was tipped red to make a triangle; there was a red triangle on the hilt too. She did not play with it too much, wind was one thing but fire could be disastrous, so it was just sitting against her wall while she played Haunting Ground for PS2.
The room was dark and she was sitting rather close to the TV. She listened to the music carefully because that was what this game was all about, if the music went away then the enemy was not far and at this point in the game, she did not like to be too particularly close to her enemy.
She moved her character, Fiona, into a small room where a stuffed chimera was and retrieved the item in its mouth. She gasped sharply as Fiona turned to leave and a (1) luminessant came through the door and hit her which caused slight panic and made the music immediately stop. Shit…oh well, I should have time to get to a hiding spot before (2) Daniella comes.
Wrong!
"HOLY GOD-FORSAKEN HELL!"
She suddenly put the screen on pause and took in the image before her. Daniella, the enemy, was right beside the door as she came out, giant glass shard poised as a sword held high in the air, ready to come down on Fiona any moment. She breathed deeply, took it off pause, used a step back maneuver and then ran for all her character's worth. A few halls later and she found (3) Hewie, her white German shepherd companion and ordered him to attack Daniella as she made her way towards a couch in the next room.
She made it in time to slide under the piece of furniture and waited on edge for Daniella to make her entrance into the room for her search. The camera angle changed to Fiona's P.O.V. under the couch and Cayenne held her breath and listened to the music indicating her enemy was not far. Styptic beats and Daniella's raspy breathing mixed in with the "Something Lacking" theme irked her beyond belief as she waited.
As what seemed like an eternity ended the Daniella character made her way past the couch and stopped before she reached the door. She stood for a moment, turned around, and looked under the couch.
"Crap!"
The words "Flee!" appeared on the screen and she called on Hewie and ran out the door Daniella should have left out of in her opinion. Hewie did his job as she made her way towards the Jupiter puzzle and took the Room of Deception. The normal music came back as she went through the door but she decided to hide in the wardrobe anyway in case she came back. I can tell you right now that that was the worst move she could have possibly made.
She opened the wardrobe door and the music was back as loud as could be. She was momentarily confused, until Daniella stepped out of the wardrobe and came after her. She paused and screamed.
"What the holy freaking fuck!"
Suddenly, the door was thrown open and hit the wall with a resounding smack! And no, this was not on the video game either. She "meeped" and rolled under her bed quick as lightning. Footsteps got closer until they were right beside the bed and the next thing she knew she was staring at bright red eyes. Only one word ran through her mind: Flee!
"(4) O.M. Fucking G!"
She pushed past the confused figure and ran to Meriel's room and explained what happened in a mad panic before both of them retreated into Takara's room. That only lasted a short while when Cayenne saw her wardrobe and threw a fit; so they hightailed it to the stairs.
"So, tell me again, why are we running for our lives?" Takara asked, she did not quite grasp Cayenne's insane ranting earlier.
"Because Psycho Maid Daniella is down the hall!"
"Alright-y then…let me pretend for a moment that I believe you, what's your evidence?"
"Door slams open, I go under bed, searching, red eyes, fleeing and now I'm just trying to get out of the vicinity as quick as possible!"
"Damn…you got that much huh?" Takara said doubtfully.
As they reached the door to the steps, Cayenne's mysterious figure reappeared in front of them and blocked the path, this time wielding a very Daniella-like weapon.
"And now there's the glass shard!" Cayenne yelled hysterically and ran the figure over to get to the stairs.
Meriel and Takara followed suit and they got halfway to the first floor when Meriel started to run out of breath and in a gasp yelled out, "HEWIE!" as if to call on the virtual canine.
Takara and Cayenne fell into fits of laughter and collapsed on each other in a domino effect and the three girls tumbled the rest of the way to the living room. They received baffled looks and glances from the people present while all different ideas came to mind. Meriel jumped behind the couch, Takara hid behind the open door, and Cayenne ran into the kitchen to prepare a counterattack. She scrambled around looking for her weapons of choice, I always wondered what would happen if we were in H.G. and actually had access to the kitchen. She thought back on the time when she went into the kitchen during the game and cast a downhearted glance at the knives her character was not allowed to pick up.
"Yes! I have obtained (5) magnesia!" she whooped happily and ran back to the foot of the stairs to set her trap.
Slowly, the figure from her room made its way down the steps. Almost immediately after it stepped into the light though, Cayenne jumped from her place behind the counter to try to warn her victim, but it was too late.
BLAM!
Cayenne's makeshift magnesia—a Fourth of July deluxe firework jammed inside a lime meringue pie—exploded and a very creamy Hiei stood before them. Everyone collapsed into peels of laughter and they were still laughing through all the murderous glares aimed in their directions. Hiei honestly could not blame them, who would take him seriously covered in pie? So, with that reasoning, he turned all of his anger towards Cayenne.
"Onna," he growled.
"Um, um, um!" She yelled frantically, "Now before you do something I might regret, you had this coming! Just what the hell was up with you scaring us half to death anyway?"
"You were the one screaming, I just came up to check on you," he corrected.
"…Huh?" To…check on me?
"I…lost at Janken," he glared at Yusuke and Kurama whom he had lost against when they decided just who would be the victim to enter the third floor domain. Ah, now it makes sense.
"So, what were you screaming about?" Kurama aimed the question at Cayenne.
"Haunting Ground!" She then realized she had left the game on pause in a very perilous situation, "Ah! That's right! That freaking teleporting psycho maid Daniella was in that freaking closet from freaking hell!"
She hurried back to her room to finish up another chase, save, and then brought the game system downstairs to show everyone.
"This" she began, "is Haunting Ground, survival horror if I've ever seen it."
They gathered around her as she started her file. Fiona Belli, she pointed out, was kidnapped and had to go through a series of puzzles and fights to escape from her hell of a mansion. Right now she had to solve the Jupiter Room puzzle. She explained that she had just found out you could not hide in the Room of Deception wardrobe as, someway, somehow, Daniella was in there. She walked her character to the Room of Truth and asked those closest to the TV to memorize the room the best they could, as she would have to point out three differences in the Room of Deception.
"What the hell! There's no way she can pull that off!"
Upon entering the room, she saw Daniella, poking the fire with a fire poker and not paying any attention to Fiona at all.
"Maybe she has an item for you?" Meriel suggested.
"Hm…could be…"
She moved Fiona toward Daniella and pressed the examine button. The screen went dark and faded into a cut scene where suspenseful music played; Daniella slowly turned to face them, and held the fire poker toward Fiona threateningly. It faded back to normal and Daniella advanced upon Fiona with her new weapon; Cayenne paused.
"ARE YOU BLOODY KIDDING ME?"
Laughter erupted again and Meriel managed to get out, "Cayenne, you really do suck at this game. With your luck I can see why you scream so often."
"Hey! You told me to talk to her, remember? Now sit back and watch me work."
She called on Hewie, ran to the Room of Deception, made sure the music was still going, and then hid in the Daniella-free wardrobe. Daniella came in, examined a few things that called her fancy, then left the room to search elsewhere.
Cayenne sighed and moved Fiona out of the wardrobe before pausing again, "So, who sees the differences?"
"Human figures," "hourglass," and "chessboard" were the responses she got, if they did not count Daniella's move from the fireplace into the wardrobe.
The game went on for quite a while, until she was almost to the boss battle. She saved and decided those were enough frightening experiences for a while. Her audience, however, did not agree. Kurama and Touya had been plotting while the others watched the game, save for Hiei who was trying to rid himself of the pie.
"You girls do remember you train at midnight tonight, right?" Touya started.
"Yes," were the wary responses.
Those two were the smart ones. Those two plotting could not end well.
"Well, we decided it would be a good idea if," the girls prepared to run if need be," we recreated some of the situations in that game for training. Oh, and by the way, you won't be able to use your powers either."
That was like tying both hands behind their backs, strapping a backpack full of rocks to them, and telling them to run as fast as they could downhill and oh, by the way, do not get flattened by this oncoming avalanche either.
"I'm sorry, there must have been something in my ear, I thought you said we can't use our powers," Takara said.
"Oh that's exactly what I said."
"What! Why!"
"Face it, you're all bound to your weapons now and if something should happen you'll need to fight normally or at least know how to hide in an enemy-free closet."
"That was cruel, Kurama," Cayenne glared knives at him.
Anyway, they had to decide character roles for this first. It turned out something like this: Yusuke would be (6) Debilitas, a big brute from before the Daniella episode. Hiei was suggested as Daniella from the previous incident, but they considered him too short and so they settled on Kurama. They probably would not have time for the second half of the game so they assigned side roles. Hiei would be the luminessants since he was good at popping up all over the place. Touya created Daniella's glass shard from ice and then hooked up a makeshift speaker system to blare the game's music from the house. Last, but not least, Jin got to be the girls' ever faithful talking Hewie.
Yusuke was sent out into the forest behind the temple to wander aimlessly as Debi would have done. Ten minutes later, Cayenne, Meriel, and Takara did rock-paper-scissors to decide who would go in first. The results are as follows: Meriel won with paper vs. Cayenne and Takara's rocks. Cayenne vs. Takara was another paper-rock throw with Takara being the victor. Cayenne took a quick breath and entered the forest. Five minutes later, Takara joined the game next and was soon followed by Meriel who quickly picked up a stick in case she needed to beat Yusu-Debi later.
They took selected tasks from the game during the Debi saga. First, they had to successfully hide from Yusuke once, Cayenne found this surprisingly easy whereas Takara was found a total of three times before she kicked him in the shin and made it seem like she ran in one direction, when she really dove into the tall grass nearby. Meriel was only found once, but he decided to leave her alone after she almost amputated one of his arms that got too close.
The girls eventually met up at one end of the woods and discussed their game plan. They needed to gather "plate-keys" that were basically wooden cards with words on them hung strategically around the forest: There was EMETH, METH, SALTATIO, and REST. Since they did not have Reijin, they decided to forget the EMETH key and go with METH which Meriel was sent after. SALTATIO was Takara's assignment and Cayenne went for REST. The keys were all marked with certain energy tabs courtesy of Botan; it was up to them to sense and find them.
Cayenne was rooting around in the brush looking for REST when she heard Yusuke coming in her direction. Duh! We have to use our own energy to seek out the plates, like magnets, so Yusuke's going to be hunting us by it! She immediately toned it down a notch so that she could not even feel the REST key's presence anymore and buried herself in the thorny undergrowth. It was not long after that when Yusuke strolled by. He was confused, but she could tell he knew he lost her signal somewhere in that area. She remained quiet as a mouse until his leave, but yanked a vine in his path and tripped him so that he landed in the thorns and cursed loudly. She contained a snicker and just her luck; there was REST beside the vine she had tugged. She snatched it up and ran back to their meeting place. Why can't I be this lucky in the actual game?
Meriel wandered little from their rendezvous point, but that did not make getting the keys any easier. Reijin was the climber, not her, and they happened to be suspended at the top of a very high tree. She could not use her powers to create a geyser or anything to make her upscale trip easier, so she resolved to climb steadily and refused to look down. If only I were a bird, or maybe a cat. Wait just a minute…I remember this!
Flashback—
"Look closely, Meriel," Touya directed her attention towards some half-demolished ice dummies, "you've struck each of them in the same places."
"So?"
"So, the enemy will come to expect your attacks. Try imagining yourself as your opponent, evaluate your previous attack and whatever you think you should do next, don't and do something different. You have to be unexpected or you'll get trapped."
"Then," she pondered this for a moment," I should feel out my enemy's senses?"
"Yes, now try again," he finished and whipped up some new practice dummies for her to attack.
—End Flashback
A cat…if I try to feel out a cat's senses, will I be able to imitate them too? With this thought in mind, about halfway up the giant tree, she found a considerably wide branch and crouched as similar to a cat as she could feel. In a leap of faith—literally—she sprung from her position to a branch higher up…
…And made it!
No flipping way…if I'd missed that… She looked down. I'm…going to avoid that thought for now and keep going for the keys. She repeated the process and soon found herself at the top of the tree where a giant bird's nest was. It seemed to be abandoned, and the two keys were resting in it. Cool! I need to remember this as an evasion point later.
She pocketed both keys and made to leave. Now I just need to get down and… She gulped at the sight of the distance from the ground. Maybe I'll just shimmy down instead of making flying jumps this time.
On her climb downwards, though, she hit an obstacle. Yusu-Debi emerged below her, way too close to the tryst and herself in her opinion. She was stuck; if she snapped a branch then she would be caught and she could not risk meeting Cayenne and Takara with Yusuke around. She sat down to think and put her hands into her pockets. As she fiddled with the two plate keys, an idea made itself known. Since they technically only needed one she withdrew the key labeled EMETH. In the game, it made the stone figure, Emeth, move from his place blocking an important door. If the player used METH, however, he would crumble and the (7) obsidian choker would be obtained.
Assuming that warding away Hiei would be a plus of using METH, she made a judgmental decision and threw EMETH as far away as she could. Yusuke heard it strike a tree and immediately took off in that direction looking for his prey and while he did so, she took her chance and hopped branches the rest of the way down and hurried back to meet the other two.
Cayenne ran towards her laughing to herself, and Takara looked like she went through a carwash with the hood down—twice. No questions were asked; they just concentrated on following the REST plate key's magnetic signal toward the "bathroom" evasion point they would use next time Yusu-Debi showed himself.
"Okay, we're here," Takara pointed out, brushing a wet strand of hair from her face, "what evasion point is there?"
"In the game, it's a shower curtain," Cayenne stated.
"So then, would all this moss be relevant?" Meriel moved behind some that was hanging from a tree.
"Yeah, I guess so, and look! It's everywhere! Kind of like a maze within a maze huh?" Takara noticed.
"It's better than the game, I can say that much," Cayenne added, "So now what?"
Meriel walked back to them and smiled, "We get our Hewie."
The next events over the course of an hour were the girls obtaining Jin as their Hewie, and having a considerable amount of fun ordering him about before getting him to find a doll they needed as a key into a new area. They narrowly escaped a pitfall trap but ran into Yusuke on the other side of it and had to recede back to the mossy "bathroom" section. Mazes were not his strong suit and they soon lost him and made their way back across the trapped area, past a large tree with a hollow in it, noting it as the "closet from the nursery" and moving onward.
They came into a clearing with wooden sculptures abundant and dubbed it the "Diorama Hall." They got so caught up in examining and finding certain items with the "medallions" they had picked up along the way, no one was watching when a) Takara slipped and fell down a dirt cliff side and b) Yusu-Debi burst into the clearing.
They got "Hewie" to stall and tried to find a less steep part to slide down. They wasted too much time though, and time was limited in their training version of the game. "Hewie" could only stall for so long until they were on their own. Cayenne panicked and hit the dirt before rolling under a nearby log leaving Meriel to run for her life and figure something out on her own.
With Takara at the bottom of the dirt ledge, she sat up and listened to her friends' frantic screams and scrambling with amusement. Ha, well at least I'm safe down here. She thought about what accomplishments needed to be made before she could make her way back up the side of the overhanging.
An hour later…
Flowers, check. Bisque doll, check. Lunar refractor, check. Okay then, now to meet up with the others. I can only pray they've accomplished the rest without me.
She went through a bunch of crap to get the "lunar refractor," seeing as the other's had their "Hewie." Fifteen minutes of hacking away at a crumbling stone wall was not how she had wanted to go about things. She made it back to the upper level and assumed the trace for the final puzzles that took place before the Debilitas boss battle, which had been activated when she had found the items because her friends were no where to be found. She followed it and saw that the block puzzles had been solved. Making her way across the "Road of Darkness" puzzle she giggled at the sight of Yusu-Debi running around in circles after her two friends and watched Meriel shine a hand mirror in his eyes. Damn it, I guess I didn't need to bring them the lunar refractor after all. Well that's crap. She joined their game and it became an all out frenzy. In the middle she had them pass her the key to the "Saturn Door" and left them to their fun.
As she prepared to get ahead of the rest of them, she forgot a crucial point in the game: when Daniella stopped Fiona to take her back for dinner which began a new saga. A cold voice behind her stopped her dead in her tracks.
"Dinner is served miss."
She slowly turned around and a small chibi-ish voice above her expressed her thoughts aloud, "Great Kami! It's Kura-Dani! Get in the car!"
Author's Notes:
(1) Luminessant - These are floating balls of blue light that chase Fiona because she smells like Azoth, when they break they cause panic and alert the nearest enemy of your location.
(2) Daniella - Psycho Maid Daniella! Wikipedia her, there's too much to say here.
(3) Hewie – the faithful dog companion Fiona receives in the game, she would not have made it without him, bless his virtual soul.
(4) Ha ha, Cayenne cusses like a sailor.
(5) Magnesia - A green crystal-like item in the game that you set and it explodes on contact.
(6) Debilitas – a retarded failed clone of a later character, Riccardo. He chases Fiona, eager to hug the life out of the life-sized "dolly."
(7) Obsidian choker - This lowers Fiona's azoth radiation, which is what the luminessants seek her out by.
That was another anonymous quote from Kerushi. Although, originally it was: "Jesus Christ! It's a bee! Get in the car!"