Raid #100

It was unavoidable.

In between the wide field of flowers before the the castle that the Princess of Heart once picked flowers, and the small, quaint cottage she took refuge in with the seven dwarfs, there was a dark part of the world called the Deep Woods. It was here that more than thirteen years ago, a young Ventus escorted Snow White to safety from Unversed and possessed trees which haunted this woodland. And it was from this eerie glade of trees where the sunlight above was shut out by the dense foilage was the darkness spreading over this world, the field of flowers dead and dried up, and the cottage usually surrounded by helpful and cute woodland creatures stripped baren of both light and warmth. Inhuman shrieks came forth from the dark forest that seemed to be devoid of any population too, as far as the bare eye could at least determine. Whatever curse seemed to plague the surrounding foliage, perhaps cast from the Evil Queen from the nearby castle, or perhaps from the last dark user that had taken over this world seemed to be prevailing in it's task.

The echo of the inhuman shriek carried forth and outwards, and there was a cold silence once more. The chilling wind blew up and howled between the tree trunks, scattering brown and dead leaves among the forest floor, blowing them past a singular decaying and leafless tree trunk. The tree seemed to have rotten in places, it's very trunk stripped of bark in places to make it appear to have some kind of carved-out hollow jack-o-lanturn face. Whether the face had any meaning had yet to be determined, as a dark figure wraithed in cloth staggered past. It was only when it neared the decrypt flora that the tree itself started to move as if it were alive.

Twiggy branches started to move as if swayed by the howl of the gale blasting through, the ends looking like skeletal fingers as it moved towards the back of the unsuspecting silhouette. Slowly, ever so slowly, it descended down towards it's target. With a loud buckling of wood moving against itself which sounded like a groan, the fingers of the branch finally ensnared the man's cloak, tugging at the tattered cloak with gnarled wood with the intent of never letting go. The crimson fabic was pulled aside, although it was not the face of a man underneath. With a sudden roar as if coming to life, a large blade with a serrated chain lashed out at the branch, cutting through the husked wood and into the face of the trunk. As the ghastly tree let out a shriek as it toppled earthwoods, the growl from the chainsaw which had felled it in one swift cut had returned to it's master's side, as the deathly pale face of the Hellmasker slumped to the side in a expressionless, zombie-like stare of it's glowing crimson eyes.

---

Hellmasker image.

(OOC: Ha, to your note, I wasn't about to let you get a free reward I'd have to eventually review anyway when I could give you a chance to feel like you earned it in a epic battle. While at the same time involving you in Vincent's subplot, so you should be grateful rather than winning the raid by default rather than effort. xD And note to self: find a table for my CM charies... )

The dying scream of the horrific treant was over-ridden by the sound of the buzzing chainsaw, it's splintered remains scattered among the forest floor. The rest of the forest was deathly silent. Glowing red eyes from within bandages surveyed the scene, the zombie slumping his limbs in a disjointed manner as pain continued to throb through it's entire body. For a dark cloudy aura was surrounding the fiend, transcending through it, as if the black fog was coming out of the heart of the creature... if it possessed one. The chainsaw growled as it's engine was set on idle, rumbling quietly from it's teeth having met soft wooden flesh. A piercing howl suddenly came from the creature as he shrieked in agonizing pain, putting it at odds with the oncoming aura of light that was entering the woods.

Hellmasker slumped forward as it's lone crimson orb spotted the young male, who did not look like part of this world at all, or even if he was adaptable to it. He wore a streamlined body suit of striped black and blue, making him stand out like a sore thumb. He had large metallic bracers on his thighs and wrists, which looked rather heavy and cumbersome. He had a large canon, which didn't worry the zombie, or even register to him yet he was a ranged enemy. A black and blue helmet covered his head and lower face to mask his appearence, and even if he was recognizable in a way he could have known who it was, the fiend wouldn't have registered in his mind who it was anyway. His human mind was on the fringe of concious thought; the instincts of the monster that had taken over him were far too overwhelming.

Instead, the base impulses of the zombie were that it did not like the light at all. The Light meant that he could be seen before he could take his victims by surprise, and brought with it blinding flashes and burning fires which brought his own senses pain. It was either hunt or be hunted, kill or be killed, and Hellmasker had not survived in his host this long to remain captive and be killed for what he was. The new, living human flesh was gone, and his own empowered with the stagnant darkness of the Lifestream empowered his presence now. But the human male was still there in his mind as he shared his body with him, struggling against a new darkness which possessed him and took over his drive like a puppetmaster pulling invisible strings, and from time to time he would resume control in uncontrollable short bursts before receeding into the dark again.

Ebon darkness pierced through his heart again, and the creature clutched his head in his free hand, obvious to the boy standing before him that some unseen but grand internal struggle was going on within the beast's mind. The Light, what right did it have to come in here and take over, when darkness had every right to exist as much as it did? Espcecially for a presence that did not suit the world at all, would not be worthy of the world he was trying to save before he took what he wanted from it's Light and left. The nightmare from a Nibelheim street did not even want to be on this world at all, and was here against it's will, but suddenly a different conciousness became disgusted at these thoughts running through it's mind as it regained temporary control.

The zombie reached towards a large, gaping hole in it's left shoulder under it's tattered crimson cloak... where the Protomateria should be.

A deep, raspy voice came from the bandaged mouth underneath the mumified dressings of fabric... or at least attempted to. But alas, none of the transformations of the abomination that was the creepy shape-shifting man could talk, unlike the human host or the perfect and true transformationt that was the harbinger of Omega. One step at a time, the undead staggered towards the robotic boy in it's attempt while he had partial control, trying to communicate but failing through gagged words beneath aged wrappings masking his jaw shut. Instead it slumped towards the ground at the young male's feet, it's free hand tracing one simple message with a shaking, decaying finger.

HELP ME

Then without warning, a piercing inhuman yell came from the creature as the dark aura around it flared up, the creature going berserk and loosing control in the form of sudden energy slashes of Splattercombo it unleashed from it's chainsaw at the hero of Light.

---


Splattercombo: A crazed series of five attacks on one enemy, with each hit making high energy slashes. Cooldown: One post.

(OOC: Meh, I'll probably pick a matching table now I've caught up on posts. And Hellmasker wasn't touching DATS at his foot or anything... he only stumbled towards him and then knelt before he reached him to carve out his message. Eheh.)

A broken man that was bound to a montrous strength from within… his punishment for his sin in failing to act would forever be his fate. He was one of many that held a heart of light within a shell of darkness, and with dark powers came heavier and dire consequences. As there was a balance of light in times in his life, so too were there times of great darkness, and none of those times in great shadow were any different to the guilt and regret the human inside Hellmasker could feel right now. The man’s intellect however had not found the resolve, the inner strength needed within to fight the powerful raw instincts of the beast without that was his current form. All his mental strength had accumulated into relaying that one message to the user of Light, and with his threshold gone unable to withstand any further mental duress against the invading darkness in his soul, the Hellmasker feed on that weakness combined with the lack of the Protomateria to finally have it’s own way now it was free.

With grim satisfaction, the Hellmasker smiled with crimson glowing eyes as his Splattercombo hit home, the human weakness having lowered the guard of the Light had come to it’s advantage. It did not further revel in the fact that it had caused harm or suffering, only that it had successfully defended itself, having no choice but to presume that the Light had come to eradicate the Darkness that had freed it along with it’s own powers. No longer would he be privy to be released at it’s human host’s will, or sharing a body with the other chaotic forms that were mixed within his genes. It’s only drive without much intellectual thought to reason or even speak was to survive, and feed. It had no interest in feeding off a humanoid that was mere data, so it’s only course of action was to annihilate the scorching Light before it’s own Darkness was banished.

With the robotic boy hitting the ground, Hellmasker stood and watched. He could sense the boy’s fear, fear of what is was, fear of the unknown. Fear was a powerful driving force, it was was divided predator from prey, and vice-versa when more powerful prey turned on the predator. Reality was harsh out in the wild such as these woods, and even though this world had haunted woods cursed by unknown spirits, the fairness was the same in all worlds. Any woodland creature could be be ensnared by one of the living treants and have it’s life taken, or trip over and break a leg while fleeing, all it came down to with survival came to the advantage of applied strength and chance. If luck was on your side, you would live to fight another day, and if it wasn’t…

However, civilizied technology became a large application of strength of mankind verses nature, and the fiend was not prepared as the humanoid squabbled some incoherant sounds it did not understand, possibly out of fright or anger before firing his weapon. A large blue bolt of water surged out of the handcannon and straight into the fiend’s chest, splattering hydration everywhere upon contact. The initcial force of the blast pushed the undead backwards, blasting him off his feet and sending him several feet backwards. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as his mottled silver hair whipped over his head, water particles forming droplets in the air, shining with a faint glimmer of rainbow light as they fell earthwards along with him. Gravity pulled him to earth and slid him on his back into the moist muck, his head hitting a large, tall tree with bark as white as a ghost. His senses rung as his cranium was struck, raising his free left hand to twist his neck back into a natural position it had been dislodged from. He clung onto his chainsaw Cerberus in the meantime for dear life, as if letting go of it meant letting go of this mortal coil itself.

On Cerberus the Hellmasker would lean as it slowly pushed itself back on it’s feet, snapping back into place a leg that had also become disjointed and twisted underneath him during it’s tumbling. That was the sheer beauty of being one of the unsent; broken bones meant little when a supernatural force kept bringing you back from the dead regardless. With a sharp snap as if the popping of the muscles in the knuckles was being cracked, the sound of his lithe bones cracked back together in a temporary splint, it’s undead powers driving it on but not healing over completely. It made sense it had it’s own scarce amount of regeneration – after all, if someone tried to use curative magic or potions on it, it would have the opposite effect that it would on normal humans. As if rising once more from it’s own coffin, Hellmasker righted itself and stared down it’s opponent with a singular crimson orb from within it’s banaged mask.

Then without warning, Cerberus let loose a might roar from it’s chainsaw teeth as it ripped into life, and tore through the bark of the ghostly tree it’s master had crashed into. The specture of a spruce groaned and buckled with a mighty creak of protest, toppling earthwards, the cut at it’s base made precisely so it’s shadow would fall upon the armored boy. Not stopping to watch him get crushed beneath tons of timber, there was a surge of darkness, as if the fiend had turned into shadow. Within seconds, the silhouette that had once been Hellmasker surged forth and reappeared out of it’s dark aura as if a ghost, leaving an after-image trail of darkness behind him. It slid upon the muddy ground that the water-wielder had dampened with his assault some distance adjacent from him, mud speckling the silver tanished armor that broke around skeletal legs that were not used to running, chosing then to see the fate of the artifical youth some distance away as he prepared it’s next move.

(OOC: Finally done with that Quistis app, and for the first time with muse intact! And eh, I'll add a table with a new Vincent thread, as adding one now would look unprofessional with the flow of writing.)

Immediately, the decrepit creature began to realize that trying to trap opponents under falling structures was never going to work. In a different form on another world, he had tried the same tactic with a tower, and it had not worked so successfully either. Well, that form was just another creature suppressing it's freedom in the zoo that was Vincent Valentine, but like him the Death Gigas was caged until their host let them out on his leash to do his will. Hellmasker didn't even have any concept of good or evil, just that light was bad, and therefore it flourished and survived in the darkness. That didn't matter, the point was the environment was not working to his advantage. Especially with the most recent move the artificial boy made.

The male easily dodged his attempt to fell timber to crush or even injure his form, and instead began to douse the entire field in water, mixing with the rich earth and the leaf litter on the forest floor to create muck. The cold and the dirt, the zombie did not mind so much. His human mind could only appreciate the smell of water hitting fresh earth, as if after a rain storm, but his undead body appreciated the cold of the earth and the softness of the ground in which to pull his opponents down into their cold, cold graves. It was light and heat which were the enemy, which was of little problem here in the battleground he had chosen in this dark forest, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was now that the cold had become too much of a good thing, the moisture causing the immediate area to become as slippery as his subtle appearance to a certain hockey-masked murderer was.

Mud bubbled under their feet, and while Hellmasker had been supernaturally fast with his ghostly speed, it was nothing without adequate footing. Water spread past his yellowed toenails and under the rotting flesh of his feet, a cool sensation that was more welcome than the blast of water he had recieved to the chest earlier. He carefully progressed forward, no longer being able to use his undeathly speed to move about, but the surface retention had become a lot more slippery than anticipated. With the friction lessening underfoot as he made one miscalculated step, the monster slipped and fell forward, splattering face-first into the mud. Another rejuvenating effect it had on his decaying skin, but he couldn't stay down on the floor as a sitting target forever, and used whatever firm ground he could find to hoist himself back upright.

That was when the fiend found firm gripholds in the nearby trees he had just felled, and realised his toppling one of them had caused a domino effect to knock over others. In a way, his human mind saw this as advantage and a clear flaw in the youth's noble attempt to transform the field into a favorable element, but the creature just saw it as higher ground to clamber upon. The tree would sink into the combination of water and dirt, but only at enough of a depth as his ankles once were after he had climbed on top of the tree and pulled them out, leaving him on a dry higher ground. As he precariously perched on top of the natural cylinder, the tree itself began to roll, this time increasing at a rapid momentum towards the water-boy. The chainsaw rumbling as if a growling dog about to attack an intruder, Hellmasker realized as it moved it's fast footing over the surface of the trunk he could flatten the artificial young man like a steam-roller, only powered with more haste because of his unnatural lithe speed, and proceeded to try and squash the boy in this manner... for the moment.

(OOC: xD Glad I could amuse with some comic relief.)

Higher ground had proved to be an advantage, up to this point at least. the new platform Hellmasker had found itself upon was unstable, and it did the best it could to step backwards and keep a foothold on the rolling tree. It's balance was quite awkward, as the undead stretched it's arms out for balance, the heavy chainsaw that was now Cerberus being a difficult counter-weight. It had no doubts it was going to lose it's equilibrium soon, and while the soft, cool earth below seemed inviting for the living corpse, being a stationary target was not. Watching as it's target shot a blast at the last minute to disorient the new log Hellmasker had created that had no unexpectedly become it's new transport, a smart Vincent Valentine would have registered the blast as a threat, but only riding on instincts the fiend didn't register there was less friction underfoot until both ends of the log started to move in different directions. Leaving it up to chance to see if the wood would collide with his opponent, the zombie found itself half-leaping, half- falling back into the chilling mud from whence it came.

Like the forest itself, everything seemed dark at first. Having used it's arms to prevent damage to it's head and chest, it seemed just like it was another lifeless body face-down in the muck. Registering that it was still in flight mode rather than fight mode, the beast pulled itself to it's feet once more. Looking like a creature from the black lagoon as it rose, it's limbs had twisted and been dislocated from the fall, hanging from it's shoulders at sickening angles from it's body. With a twisted snap, Hellmasker snapped it's limbs into place as if it were stretching, bringing the dormant chainsaw Cerberus forward to wield once more as it staggered out of the sludge.

And it was back to where it was before, either cautious of it's steps should it go face-plant in the slime beneath it's feet, or slowed down by it's thighs causing friction as it traversed through. The monster's instincts told it to seek higher ground to regain speed, clambering upon another tree trunk once more. This one seemed to be more sturdy, and offered dry land for the moment while it seeked out it's opponent. It sensed it's prey was still dealing with the effects of the lumbered tree it had been upon before, and there was a considerable gap of lower ground and mud between it and the boy. Taking advantage while it awaited to see the results of the artificial human's fate, Cerberus ripped into a roar once more, it's teeth cutting into more nearby trees to create more float-able platforms and unleashed it's destruction upon the haunted forest around it at the same time.

The hero of Light had drawn it to do this... the human inside wondered what the Synaptic Dive humanoid would do next.

(OOC: Wow, very nice color change, you've got a color for every form you've got and are going to get? xD)

The sharp crack of timber snapping filled the forest between roars from the chainsaw from hell cutting into them, the flutter and scurrying from any woodland animals the only movement between the foliage. Now having created a log pathway across the swamp his quandary had created, and having glanced back over his shoulder to check if his prey had finally succumbed to the weight of another hollowed tree crushing him, it was a sight to behold that the log had done it's work even after spinning out of trajectory. Colliding into the other logs and almost making a crude dam on one side of the field, Hellmasker watched as the cyborg got a taste of what it felt like to be face down in the mud. But unlike the young boy, he would use this moment to his advantage. One slip, one fumble was all it took in the wild for a beast to become critically injured, and Cerberus roared to life in his hands as it's master stumbled forward.

Shifting into shadow and blazing a trail of dark silhouettes behind him as he moved nigh instantaneously, Hellmasker ripped across the log platforms. Re-appearing on a wooden platform adjacent to where the android had fallen into the muck, and came down upon him with a simple but powerful dive of his chainsaw. However, the boy had quickly gotten up and in doing so dodged the maneuver. The only response in frustration in that his plans had failed was a crick in sound from his neck, followed by a hiss through the slits in his stitched-shut mouth, as a bright light came from the boy as he suddenly changed. The zombie did not like the light, nor the following curative magic the youth seemed to exude over his form as he disgustingly used it upon himself.

The undead soon came to notice with it's senses that after the greenish light had been cast over the boy, he seemed more energetic, along with his own wounds and battle-damage gone. Even after he had changed into a different form, and the fiend realized it had somehow rejuvenated himself. If he let the artificial life continue to cast the green glow upon him during the fight, he would never be able to defeat him, much less ward him off away from this dark world it had claimed for it's own. Even though it no longer breathed fresh oxygen, it exhaled out a large purple gas in the form of his Nightmare attack, which would purposely float over and enshroud the robotic boy long enough to inflict random status ailments for longer than he could hold his breath.

The sentient mind within the beast saw flaws in it's fierce instincts. If the boy were from another world that was computerized like Ansem's computer, would the attack work even if he didn't need to breathe in, and permeate his form with it's viral attributes?

---

Nightmare: Unlike the other transformations, both of Hellmask's attacks hit just one target. To make up for it, Nightmare inflicts strong Poison damage as well as Confusion, Sleep, and Mute. These effects only last one turn. (The opponent must choose between whether they are poisoned, confused, asleep, or muted at the very least for one turn.) Cooldown: Five posts.