@the_psyentist: I love that picture :)
The Astral Plane (CVnU location)
Raltharion's deep spiritual connection and philosophic ways enabled him to project himself on the Astral Plane, a feat that even he had not fully masted quite yet. He was growing better at it with training however, managing to stay in astral form for longer periods of time. However, he was still required to be in a meditative state while astrally projecting himself... a limiation that he had long since hoped to surpass.
Being on the astral plane allowed him to get away from the tethers that he possessed whilst on Midgard, to ascend to a state where he had no need to concentrate on his... other ideals.
On the ouskirts of the Astral Plane an unnatural growth formed with circadian frequence. 'Twas an abyssal construct that was pulsingly dissonant with the rest of the noncorporeal realm, a craggy spherical tumor born of empirical Konite fever dreams and inhuman thirst that clawed at the sanity of one man. This astral tumor, it was his personal dungeon.
He was Romero, a monster, a terrorist, a murderer, a warrior, a man, an amnesiac. His mind made manifest eerily floated in his infinitely finite astral cell, his masked figure contrieved to mimic the pondering posure of the bronze Thinker. Around him the crackling purple psychic energies assembled his insecurities into vivid images. Faceless apparitions of his former life orbited him with maddening silence wearing blank expressions that sought answers he did not know, forcing his mind into frantic overdrive in their desperate search.
More - more apparitions appeared with each pondering question, orbiting faster and faster and faster until his twitching eyes could not keep up with the crescendo but Romero could not blink nor could he scream. Only faint incohesive screams of despair escaped the confines of the skull mask , it's joints did not move. It had become his binding muzzle that forced him to witness the Dionysian theatrics held in his honor. The criminally revered Don of the Dead was but a spectator here, the prisoner locked his own body.
Up, down, left, right. His tearing gaze darted in such directions eagerly trying to catch a glimpse of his ethereal tormentors while another slowly came to be inside the phantasmal orbit. It was small-- She was small. Young. Her flowery dress reached just below her knees and her unfathomably dark hair sailed liberately from the laws of gravity. Who was she? He did not know or even notice until her hands found their way onto his cheeks with a warrant for attention. With success Romero embraced her soothing touch, but she was also faceless still.
*GAASP!*
It was then, after he surveyed her looks, that his nightmarish excursion came to it's end and he was drawn back to his drug empire. His drenched muscular upper portion rose up in shock, veiled by luxurious bed sheets in the safety of his villa. Her appearance, it was either an omen or an old mnemoc impression that subconsciously lured him north of Mexico's borders.
A strong enough will could shape the fabric of the Astral Plane and give form to whatever lurked in one's mind. And at the heart of the immaterial plane, the Horned God did just that. Arms held motionless at his side, and a vacant expression on his face, Ezra stood in complete stillness as the maddening dread and lunacy creeping from his pores slowly warped his surroundings. Around him, his environment was shifting, nightmares were being given the foulest of forms, each one more horrifying and frightening than the last until the horror was no more. Walls, windows, ceilings and a roof had formed around him - the Strix Pomest'ye. The lurid glow of a dim chandelier was cast over him, and the Madweaver stood in the dining hall like a statue.
It was as though he'd been petrified and turned to stone. Oh but slowly, his lips pulled back into a gentle grin, his dark grey skin cracking as he did so, his face growing gaunt and emaciated as though his bones were pushing out against his peeling flesh. He was welcoming the Demon of Silence. "Welcome", Ezra's voice floated, his mouth barely moving. "It is a pleasure", he paused, before abruptly moving forward with a single impulsive step that dragged him across the dining hall. His hand outstretched, it's flesh cold and rigid like a corpse's, the Mad Strix met the Demon of Silence with the dead and blackened eyes of a corpse. But he was neither human nor god. No metahuman or demon. He was something more abhorrent, a stranger to both man and god, a nightmare abomination from the Black Hallows.
"Please, have a seat", Ezra smiled, his voice soft and perfectly charming before retiring to his seat at one end of the long dinner table. "Shall we discuss the terms of her torture?".
On the Material Plane, the Demon of Silence was forced to possess host bodies in order to interact with the world around him and influence it with his malevolent will. One the Astral Plane, however, the psionic archfiend was under no such restriction, and was free to appear in whatever form suited him most naturally. "Natural," however, would likely not be one of the words which sprang to mind upon seeing the Demon's true form, for although the being had been born from the darkest parts of humanity's collective consciousness, there truly was nothing human about it.
Where the Horned God's horror often lay in subtleties, the Demon's was more forthright, its nebulous, shifting form giving the viewer erratic hints of burning eyes, twisted claws, and a maw filled with an impossible number of gnashing fangs. It approached as a gathering thunderstorm might, filling the space before it with an escalating aura of despair and dread. Irresistibly drawn to the summons by curiosity and its own insatiable appetite for inflicting chaos and suffering, it drew up short before the Mad Strix, and emitted a sound which, aside from its utter lack of anything resembling merriment, might be considered laughter.
"Not many can describe making my acquaintance as pleasurable," it responded with an infernal chuckle, "though I am well aware of you, and you are not what I would consider to be 'one of the many.' Torment is one of my favorite subjects, but your suggested target intrigues me." The Demon had taken note of Abigail Aensland, largely through its own machinations in the turbulent country of Venezuela. "A hopelessly idealistic soul, that one, but as much as I enjoy destroying such, I doubt that you would be enlisting my aid in your endeavor if she was not of tremendous significance to you."
The Demon of Silence was a sight unlike any other. Where Ezra's eyes were empty sockets of darkness, the Demon's were smoldering pits of a nightmarish rage. It was a sight frightful enough to mangle the courage of even the bravest of men - and freeze the sweat running down their spine like a cold sheet of ice. Seated still and eerie like a corpse, his eyeless and deathly gaze meeting the Demon's, the Horned God's smile wrinkled his bloodless flesh, "Indeed", his voice echoed, disturbingly sweet and soft. "We are likeminded", Ezra paused, finally moving as he reached for a fork and knife, the sound of creaking wood floating from his moving joints. "I have sought you out because of her resilience and moral fiber. She is... difficult to torture. She always escapes", he lamented.
Sticking his fork into the imagined meat of his crone slain during his son's invasion of the Pomest'ye, the Mad Strix dined on her flesh, savoring her taste, stirring from it before speaking once more. "What fun it would be, to capture her, torment her, toy with her hope, flay her body as we flay her mind... and feast on her flesh and feed on her dread and desperation", Ezra rasped, his voice growing rotten, and drool trickling from his mouth at the thought of sinking his teeth into Abigail's flesh. "And her mother", he remembered, "They are in hiding... I cannot find them. But you, Demon of Silence", the Horned God paused once more, his voice deeper, chortled and more sinister, "You can find them".
It was a good question. What does the Demon of Silence stand to gain should he assist the Horned God? Setting his fork down, Ezra reached for a napkin, gently wiping the blood at the edges of his mouth, "I know of a rumor about you", he mentioned with a small grin, the air growing still and deranged as he fell suddenly silent and motionless. Then, as suddenly as he'd grown silent, Ezra spoke once more, his voice creeping softly in the atmosphere, "It was spoken to me by a whisper", he paused, lowering in pitch, speaking softer and just above a whisper, why? No one knew. No one could make sense of the Horned God's madness. "A whisper that told me that just as I feast on the flesh of others... you feed on their dread, their hopelessness, and their fear".
Slowly clasping his hands together, the Mad Strix lifted his chin, his gaze dead and vacant, and his face void of any expression save for a subtle grin. "Dread. Hopelessness. Fear. Madness....", Ezra rasped, his voice no longer soft but deathlike. "I cast them all!", his empty eye sockets widened, his face twisting and contorting into a crazed nightmare. "Voices shout louder in their minds, speaking vile and rotten things of significance to them until their hope and courage gives way to terror and dread, lunacy and madness". Suddenly calm, his wide and toothy grin fading into nothing, the Mad Strix concluded, "Bring them to me, and I will bring out of their hearts the negative emotions you sink your teeth into".
Most impressive.
It was true, then. This was not some megalomaniacal metahuman or an occultist with delusions of grandeur. It would seem that the rumors were, in this case, accurate; the Strix were inhuman creatures, and probably more akin to the Demon than any beings it had encountered in its long span of existence. Beyond that, this one had clearly done his research. He knew that the concentrated negatively that would gush from a breaking of a pure soul like arterial spray from a mortal wound would be an irresistible lure.
"It would seem, then,"the psionic fiend finally replied, as his nebulous form began to coalesce into something more recognizable, if no less monstrous, "that we understand one another. It will be done, then. My servants, both astral and corporeal, will find your victims for you. They will be brought to you alive, and as physically undamaged as is possible. All that I require is a location to which they shall be brought."
In a masterful display of vocal extravagance he had entered the mysterious realm of the Astral Plane. Home to those with the ability, the disciplined power to ascend to a higher state of mental being. A place where dreams and reality melted into a cohesive construct of one's own making. A place where untold influences could trap those weak of mind. Weak of conviction. Weak of soul.
Yet for the Silent Starscream it was a place of respite and spiritual guidance. On a bank alongside the serene calm of an undisturbed lake the Neosin Shinobi casually knelt. Floating several tōrō's along its mirror glass surface in ceremonial remembrance of the lives he had sacrificed at the Khan.
In remembrance of the lives of his enemies, the ones he himself had cut down in their conspiracy driven pursuits. And while they had succeeded in bringing down the bricks, the walls, the foundation, the San'Vun Syndicate remained on course to take over the Yazkuza. Their covert agents still out there meticulously murdering the underground links in the chain of command. Their vast network of resources still flourishing in the untraceable blackmarket sea of criminal enterprises.
But the Voice Unheard had not visited the Astral realm to exercise his sense of ceremony. He had come in search of answers. One's which had continued to allude his reach in the real World. From here, inside the dreamless landscape, Yazhun could oversee the blood related San'Vuns on a spiritual level. Connect with the cerebral imprints of those strong enough to lucidly drift into the Astral void. He had come here in search of answers to his sister's unexplained disappearance. For even in death he hoped her mental echo would have found its way here. All he had to do now, was find it.
Yazhun wandered through the mental realm adorned in the trappings of a cyberpunk Jedi. A Dark Blue Kimono with matching drop-crotch pants with wrapped ankles bleeding into a costume pair of 'Kickstradomis'. Like an unranked Arashikage he wore his Katana horizontally along his back and waist, a subtle call-back to the historic era of the assassins and the wars they had waged.
Through the corporeal realm he confidently swayed studying the vast projections, loosing himself in the translucent hues but sure not fall into the cerebral influences of others inside the Astral Plane. A difficult task, as the Plane was a familiar home to a plethora of telepathic poets, mental magicians, and demonic apparitions who were far more dangerous then himse
*She's not here. Her voice caused the Silent Starscream to pause in journey, but not look back. His head barely titled as it looked at the ground in sorrow instead. *You know what that means my son. It means her soul is not at piece. It means that her mind is lost, her body...dead.
He turned to face her. To face his mother's astral representation. Rolling his wrists up into a palm-in-hand gesture, he bowed before replying. It was here in which the Neosin Shinobi could hear his actual voice. Speak with the freedom to convey his own words. "How is that possible? Who? Who would dare?"
*I do not know my son. But you must find out. You, must make it right. The Khan, now this? You must restore honor to the San'Vun name. You must, make it right...
*=translated Japanese
Such power. Such strength of will. Such limited understanding...
"Why do you flee, Destructor? How do you plan to escape your destiny?"
The Ancient One exerted his own ponderous force of mind, and the nothingness shifted, becoming the bridge of the long-destroyed Demon's Fist. It was bereft of any crew or other occupants, save one: a projection of Nordok in the body Trinity would have originally known as him.
"Look at the devastation you so effortlessly inflicted upon the Ephemerans with our power. Satisfying, without doubt, but only in passing. You were created to achieve far loftier aims. Distract yourself with dalliances for now, if you like; a period of...adjustment is to be expected. Soon, however, you will focus your mind upon the completion of the cause. My cause. The will of the universe..."
Before, The Destructor's screams shook every edge and crevice of the Demon's Fist. Howling out in a paroxysm of suffering, she'd crumple onto the floor, paralysed in a derangement of her senses. Now the very essence of her being trembled, screams radiating waves of agony over a much broader scale, unconstrained by the laws of the material plane. As she had many times before, folding in on herself, raking her fingers over every accessible part of her form as though to peel away her very sense of self.
Although a naturally gifted psionic thanks in part to the gifts of the Shadow Brethren, in the esoteric applications such as the Astral Plane itself, Trinity was barely even a novice. Even with the benefit of several million lifetimes she would never match his technical prowess; for as much physical might as she possessed, with unadulterated access to the point of her mind-body connection the ancient overlord could once again hurt her in a way no physical being ever could.
But something else clawed its way to the surface in time. From beneath the screams of a young girl she let out a bestial roar. Her astral form still trembling, still twitching from her fingertips to eyebrows, Trinity stood, hunched, to both feet. Still hurting, but no longer helpless, she hoped. Never again."Fear...Because...I've been evolving, getting better...in every way...And you're still relying on the Same. Old. Tricks!"A canyon-sized fissure split the ground as the Imperium's ultimate weapon launched at her maker with no regard for anything but his destruction. Pain into fury into power, Trinity blitzed the Cosmic Puppeteer with an unceasing flurry of strikes intent on, if nothing else, pummelling him into submission if not pulverizing his astral form.
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