tampered | Log: Complete

Current Music: Nine Inch Nails "Ruiner"

Log: Complete

When; Mind Reading Day
Rating; NC-17 due to graphic violence
Characters;

red_horror Pyramid Head,

alessalearnt Alessa
Summary; Driven mad by the constant mental barrage Alessa sends Pyramid Head on the hunt for fresh blood. Scarab, who is out looking for Inspector Abberline, happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Log;

Scarab winced as another barrage of insane thoughts ripped out of the cathedral ( that kid was seriously fucked up) and closed her laptop.

Abberline had been sighted near building 3.

With luck she could catch up to him before someone, or something, else did.

Stowing it in her bag, she picked up her SR-25 rifle and slung the strap diagnally across her body for easy access, then belted on the pack and started off down the cathedral steps.

'Please, Please God', she prayed silently, 'Please don't let anything happen to him. Just let him wait a little longer...'

She knew Frederick was going to be angry later that Scarab and Faye had gone after him, but right now she would happily trade him being pissed as hell for his safety.

"Vision", or no damn vision!

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It was then, without any warning, that the sky began to fade. The clouds did not dissipate so much as vanish from existance. It was a deep, choking blackness, that FELL upon the buldings, heavy and forboding. In the distance, the frantic scream of an air raid sired, but it was far too late. The thing that lurked in the darkness was done being playful. A primal fury had been awakened, and all hell was breaking loose. This was almost literally proven, as at the bottom of the steps, there was an explosion of concrete, massive chunks sailing through the air. Before the dust could clear, the tip of the red pyramid began to emerge through the hole as the creature frantically clawed it's way to the surface.

There was no time to react.

As though a switch had been thrown Scarab found herself blinking into the darkness.

She brought the rifle to bare and switched on the small flashlight mounted next to the scope, but no sooner had she taken one sweep with the light did the ground at her feet erupt in a hail of rocky debris.

Thrown back by the explosion, she scrabbled backward up the steps after the SR whose strap had been literally ripped away from her.

"Jesus!" she swore as a living nightmare came clawing it's way from the ragged maw below her.

Fear. Raw and acidic filled her mouth at the wave of stygian horror that rolled off the thing in waves. They weren't thoughts...or rather, they weren't anything close to human thoughts.

'FuckFuckFuckFuck!', she thought, feeling panicky in the face of a horror as she had never imagined in her darkest dreams.

Her hand closed around the rifle, and before even trying to stand she rolled over, aimed , and let loose a barrage of bullets at the demon rising before her.

Dark, chunky..Blood? It looked more like rust. Whatever it was, it blew out of the abhorration's back as the bullets struck. The monster jerked, and twitched, but seemed otherwise unphased as it raised itself to it's feet. Turning back to the hole, it angrily yanked it's nine-foot steel blade from the darkness below, and began to lurch forward with a speed not usually associated with the crimson demon. On great, grisly white hand was pressed against the side of it's helmet, as if in pain, yet it surged forward, dragging the blade along. The very ground seemed to sense it's anger, and through every small crack in the concrete, blood began to spurt, bubbling and oozing down the steps and the creature charged forward, the very air screaming it's intentions.

Beneath the Noh mask Scarab's eyes widened at the sight of the blade.

She had heard stories...but nothing compares to staring down a machete thats longer than you are tall.

Shit!

It started to advance, and she started to backpedal. pushing and scooting until her hands and feet were slipping in something. Something thick and disturbingly warm.

Back and back and back, and suddenly she hit a wall. "Get back!!" she screamed at the monster and fired off more rounds, aiming to attempt to keep them in the vicinity of one another.

Make a big enough hole...got to slow it down!

It wasn't working.

And the rifle was clicking away, now emptied of rounds.

Fear turned to panic, and panic turned to adrenaline that had Scarab on her feet and trying to run with no knowledge of how she had stood, nor where she was going to go....but the ground was slick, and she couldn't find her footing.
For the second time she fell, her hair now stuck to the cheeks of the porcelain white mask in crimson chunks.

She blindly reached for the glock at her back and started agian to fire, trying desperately to push it back.

Have to get away. Have to get away. Have to get away!!

The doors of the cathedral burst open and a mangled array of thoughts seemed to roar through the air. Staggering down the aisle of the chapel, Alessa grasped onto the bowl that contained the holy water. Her power was on overdrive; the blessed water darkened and turned into blood. She shoved her hands in it, bringing them up quickly, blood sprinkling her filthy cheeks. Dark circles were under her eyes, and her expression was one of pain and rage in a frightening grimace. She stared at them, her breaths coming out sharply. BLOODnotenoughINEEDMOREBLOODMOREMOREMORESHUTTHEMUP she thought, clenching her fists before dunking her entire face in it and bringing it back up.

'AAAAAAAUUUGGGHHH!!!!! NOTENOUGHTOOLOUDTOOLOUDSHUTTHEFUCKUP!!!!' She screamed, her voice ricochetting off of the chapel walls. She whirled around to face Christ on the cross 'YOUR SACRIFICE MEANT NOTHING!!! DO YOU HEAR ME??? NOTHING!!!!!!!'

Her fingernails were tearing through the flesh of the palms of her hands, and she began to bleed. Muttering as if she were possessed by some demon, Alessa's pupils dilated as her keen telepathy picked up the raucous outside. She staggered forward, her mouth starting to twitch in a cruel smile. BLOODMOREBLOODHERBLOODSHUTYOUUPSHUTALLYOUFUCKERSUP, she thought loudly, forcing the chapel doors to burst open with her mind as she staggered out into the dark nightmare she had created.

The glock dropped from nerveless fingers as a wall of rage, hate and pain rolled over her like a great suffocating mass.

BLOODMOREBLOODHERBLOODSHUTYOUUPSHUTALLYOUFUCKERSUP

There was no sound but the mangled words. No sight but the darkness and the glint of metal.
She couldn't breathe! The stygian mass of thought-made-real was suffocating her, forcing it's way inside and turning her inside out.

Desperately blood-slicked fingers jerked the mask away just in time for her to come to her hands and knees and puke.

There was no demon with a knife after her now. No place to run or hide. No up or down. Just the thought; screaming, cutting, burning through the tears and the mess and the sight of that thing gaining on her.

...Blind, and deaf to the world....

She screamed.

The massive hole in his chest did cause him to stop, for a moment. The hand left the helmet, and traced the gory wound. Quickly as it had happened, sinews and tendons stretched over bare bone, and the wound was gone, it's only trace being the hole in the butcher's gown. He surged forward, the massive knife swinging in erratic arcs, chewing into the concrete steps and blasting them to bits. He was only a few feet away, and raised the massive weapon, as the doors swung open.

He stopped, the blade hoisted in the air, arms trembling with the weight.

ORDERS, NOW.

Alessa took in the scene in only a few seconds. A woman, scared half to death, on her hands and knees, gazing up at Pyramid Head as if he were Death himself ready to take her soul to hell. Pyramid Head, his strong arms trembling slightly with the weight of his knife, the face hidden by the mask contorted in the rage that Alessa herself felt, yet showing no other signs of weakness. She knew he would hold the damned knife like that for all of eternity if she asked him to do it. On any other day, the gesture would have touched her. But not today. Today, Alessa wanted blood. Her blood. One quick look into the woman's mind told her all she needed to know that this was not an innocent, and as such, she could be killed as punishment.

Slowly, very slowly, a chuckle escaped Alessa's lips. Within moments, it turned into full-out mocking laughter as the woman screamed and screamed and screamed. 'No one to hear you scream now....no one to save the Scarab...the Scarab will be crushed like the fucking bug she is, oh yes, oh yes,' Alessa said madly, descending the steps to approach the woman, the blood from the bowl still wet on her face.

She stopped several feet away from the woman, glancing up at her guardian. HOLD IT, YOU HAVE THE STRENGTH, she ordered him sharply. She wanted Scarab to know why she was dying.

'Pretty, pretty, bug you are....Pretty, pretty Scarab,' she said, lips twitching in a mad crooked smile. 'So pretty....the men love you, Scarab, because you are a beautiful insect, oh yes. But they don't knooow, do they? They don't knoooow what they're getting themselves into!'

Alessa bent down to meet the woman face to face and a mad chuckle left her lips. The pain was unbearable, the voices were too loud, and something in her sanity had snapped. 'They don't knooow that you're the black widow hiding behind the pretty, pretty Scarab, do they? Oh nooo they don't! The men come to you and they don't knooow. They don't knooow, they don't knooow, theydon'tknoow,theydon'tknooowTHEYDONTKNOOOOWTHEYDONTKNOOOOW!'

She slapped the woman across the face.

Like a wave the thought receeded and Scarab gasped for air.

On hands and knees, and coated in blood and sick she looked up...and saw a child? No..no not a child.

Devil in disguise

Another sucking undertow of solid-thought poured over her. Images now. A lifetime of images plucked from her past.

Skittering nails across her brain. Rifling her memories in a hasty scrabbling.

The Devil was laughing, shouting, shoving her face in her past mistakes.

The bike spinning and Yukio falling away with a hole where his face should be.

"Stop it"

Daniel laughing, smiling, singing, bleeding, screaming dying.

"Stop it!"

A thousand moments. Names irrelevant. Cencored for security reasons.
Two rounds to the back of the head-Execution style.
Blades in the dark.
Blood in the water.

"STOP IT!!!"

A child's nursery rhyme about insects and angels repeating in her head.

They-Don't-Know, They-Don't-Know, They-Don't-Know!

Through the tears and the pain, The blood and the shame, She looked at the Devil.

"Fuck You.."

...And the slap sent her reeling back into the blood and the bile...

'HOW DARE YOU DO SUCH A THING????????? HOW DARE YOU KILL YOUR LOVE FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR SELFISH, DISGUSTING, INSIGNIFICANT THING THAT YOU CALL A CAREER?????' Alessa screamed, her face contorted into one of fury. 'HOW DARE YOU THROW LOVE AWAY LIKE IT IS SOME CHEAP ITEM TO BE BOUGHT AND DISCARDED???? HE LOVED YOU!!!! HE FUCKING LOVED YOU!!!! AND THIS IS HOW YOU WOULD REPAY HIM???? You do not know...cannot possibly know...the pain of being unloved....AND YOU THREW IT AWAY!'

Alessa spit in the woman's face. 'You disgust me,' she growled. 'You are nothing but an insect, one that truly does deserve to be crushed. This is your Judgement Day, and your blood will be spilt on this holy ground in penance for your sins. God have mercy on your fucking, tainted, unclean soul.' She looked up at Pyramid Head.

'....Kill her.'

One dirty, blood-caked, black-booted foot came crashing down upon the arm of the Scarab, the one reaching for the gun. He scraped his boot across the concrete, pulling the arm where he could see it, and smearing a wide line of dark crimson as he did so. The arm was exposed, pinned benath the boot, as the blade flashed down with amazing precision for such a massive weapon. When the knife had finished it's arc, thin rivulets of blood trickled down the edge, and a middle and index finger went tumbling down the steps. Oh, he'd kill her all right, but he'd have his fun first.

Reaching down, he pulled the arm free from his boot, and dragged the woman skyward, holding her at level with..Well where his face would be.

Guilty</>

The world was nothing but a sharp haze of screaming.

A cacophany of voices that all resounded in the same voice; proclaiming her guilt, her shame for the entire world to know.

Oh God, Daniel! I'm sorry!

"Kill Her."

...And instinct took over. Pure muscle-memory.

The survival drive.

Scarab reached for her second glock.
She had to shut the Devil up.
Make her stop, make her stop, make her stop!

...and screamed when the Demon's boot broke her hand.
She screamed when he tore her skin on the concrete

...but she tore her throat when he removed her fingers.

..Forgive us our trespasses...

She could only whimper when he ground the delicate bones in her wrist together, and only writhe when he dislocated her shoulder.

The blood was in her eyes when he lifted her off the ground, but she saw and saw and saw.

...They were right.

.....The abyss does look back......

Forgive us our trespasses...

The thought hung on the air, and Alessa smiles, watching greedily and with pride as her guardian performed his lovely art. '....AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US!!!!' Alessa finished, her voice filled with elation as the victim and the executioner stared eachother down.

She licked her blood-stained lips and rubbed her hands in glee. Such a nice present for your master, Red One, such a pretty Scarab....such a pretty Scarab with crushed wings and legs and body... she thought. This is going to be sooo good.

When his commander had finished taunting the guilty one, he decided it was time to make his masterpeice. He marched, with the rythm and purpose of the executioner, to the wall of the cathedral, and held his prisoner before him, ceremoniously facing the wall.

I hope you like it. I picked it out just for you

With that, he pressed the bleeding stumps of her fingers against the brick wall, and dragged flesh and bone across it, as if painting. The brick would scrape away skin, and grind away bone, but still he drew, the blood standing perfectly against the cream-colored bricks. The horrendous consciousness beneath the helmet took pride in his work, and stepped back to admire his work, rivulets of red tricking down his arm, and across the wall.

Giant, red, butterfly wings.

Sharp tremors that electrified the torn tendons in her shoulder and swelling wrist.

Shock. I'm going into shock...

Hyperventilating as the horror that had her by the neck, and trying not to move agianst the rough stone.

I-can't-breath I-can't-breathe I-can't-breathe!!!

It had her injured hand.. It was lifting it to the stone..

OH-GOD-NO!

White hot and searing as bone ground to shards and stuck in the meat of her palm

Tears of horror and anguish mixed with the blood on her face to run down into her open mouth.
Open in a silent rasp of pain...she had lost the ability to scream long ago.

OH GOD! OH GOD I'M SORRY, PLEASE..PLEASE!

She was choking, gagging, but nothing came.
Her body too broken to to even respond to basic motor impulses...just the pained refrain: ...I'm so sorry...please...please...I'm so sorry...

With an uncharactistic care, he placed rested the Great Knife against the brick. The judged was babbling. He hoped she'd keep it up. Nothing was better than living art. He lowered her a bit, allowing her feet to touch the floor.

Then, he brought his fist back, and slammed the great white hand into the cement of the wall. His rusted blood poured down the wall, making a dark, hideous tail to the butterfly wings. He gripped the support wires inside the wall, and viciously twisted them outwards so that they protruded horizontally from the building, in the center of the wings.

It was almost time. He now gripped his victim's collar with his bleeding hand, and hoisted her into the air, allowing her to gaze upon the unifnished work.

Alessa was used to these pleadings. She had heard them countless times as the guilty were being punished. Xulchibara was not merciful. He demanded blood, and Alessa would give it to Him. She would recieve mercy after death.

'You deserve this,' Alessa whispered, glaring at the woman. 'Daniel and your friend will be avenged.'

She relished in the wounded woman's chaotic mental screams. It was loud, but it was good. Very, very good. It didn't hurt.

Butterflies. So pretty. Yes, scarab, pretty scarab, you will be reborn as a butterfly, cleansed of sin. How beautiful you will be, she thought, sending a mental message to Pyramid Head of appreciation of his painting.

She shuddered involuntarily when he punctured the wall, sending fresh waves of electricity dancing along her nerve endings, but could only stare in mute horror when he pulled out the rebar.

She could hear thier thoughts...She knew what was coming.

...OH...GOD...

Her knees buckled out from under her, but his iron grip never wavered.
Thought and memory mixed with oxygen deprevation to turn her mind into a a montage of images.

Devil takes it's due....You don't have a memory; it has you

He was bending the bars into shape.

Like God covered the world in crystals.....Jackal in a trap...

He was lifting her by the collar of her suit. She could feel the metal ring bow under the pressure of his hand.

...Seico...Daniel...Yukio...Tigerlily...

He was arranging her mangled limb like a sculptor would; meticulous in every detail, certain to make the shattered bones grind together.

....Faye....

He spread her arms.

...Frederick...

With that, he flung his arm outward, throwing the judged one, and as she left his grasp, he heard the rending of flesh, saw the bars pushing their way through her chest. It was glorious. He spread his arms out wide, a mockery, or perhaps a flattery, of her own. The condemned hung there, blood pouring from the rebar-filled holes in tribute to his art. He was done. He turned to his master, the great pyramid lowering slightly as a sign of subordinance, before the dread creature left his artwork clinging to life, and started towards the hole in the granite.

Alessa gasped in awe at the sight. It was...so beautiful! This was true redemption. The condemned was a bloody angel of flesh, and her executioner had done a spectacular job. She would have to reward him later for his good work. There were still some nurses that needed to be broken in. The darkness followed him, and as quickly as it came, it was gone, leaving only the night.

But there was something missing.

The Great Knife lay on the ground, discarded. Alessa approached it, frowning. He forgot it, she thought, irritated that he had been so caught up in the moment to forget his dearest possession. She reached out, grasping both blood-stained hands around the hilt. This is heavy, she thought, disgruntled. The noise of the citizen's thoughts were coming. She could feel them building up in her head. Better to do this quickly.

Mustering her power, Alessa found the strength to lift the Great Knife. 'Pretty Scarab, I will be the one to finish the masterpiece!' She declared, thrusting the Knife through her stomach. There was more blood now. Perfect.

She backed away, surveying the art they had created. Yes, beautiful, she thought. Pyramid Head could come collect his sword later.

Without warning, a light drifted from the sky, lightening on Scarab's corpse. Alessa gasped. Yes...YES! Born a scarab, reborn a butterfly... She sighed at the beauty of it. Metamorphosis.

Satisfied at last, Alessa walked up the stone steps into the cathedral, ignoring the "holy water" and passing Christ's figure on the cross without a glance. His death may have meant nothing, but the scarab's....that had its purpose. Vengeance was sought, blood demanded, salvation granted.

Justice was so sweet.

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