Red Cape and Foil [Eris/Closed]

[Lazarus Carter]

3:13 AM
JANUARY 25TH, 2012
PARALLEL OF A DOWNTOWN D.C. CARNIVAL
ENTROPIC CHASM
INFERIS

They say sleep is for the weak.

Lazarus had never truly believed he was anything but weak all in all in those two weeks between his first foray into this limbo they called Inferis and that raid on the multiplex a few days ago, but after that, something had snapped, twisted, and changed - for better or worse - permanently within the teen's body, within his very essence, at the core and fibre of his being. And whilst facing his demons - both literal and metaphoric - had brought him a degree of closure, the insomnia, though softened and lessened, sometimes persisted.

The redhead didn't seem to mind quite as much as he had in the earlier days of the month. He'd never really been afraid of the dark, and it had always, since early childhood, brought him solace when frightened, upset, distraught, or even heartbroken to walk in the night. And to clear a head simultaneously empty and crammed full of images and sentiments he still found himself struggling to accept, around half an hour earlier that morning, Lazarus Carter had departed from his hotel room to simply... walk.

And walk he had done. But once more curiosity had taken grasp as he found himself sidling past the fenced-off area of a local carnival. Sleeping, of course, at this hour of the morning, as the starlit sky illuminated tattered old tents and a shabbily-maintained carousel. It wasn't to be really that surprising; D.C. as a city was full of these things. And Laz didn't really know what it was that made him do it, but, linking his fingers through the chain mesh of the fence, and casting a gaze over the decrepit sights within, the redhead looked within himself for that newly invigorated will, and, as he'd only recently learnt, tugged at his own essence to pull himself from the plane of one world into another.

An extrasensory tearing sounded and before his eyes the chain links of the fence seemed to rust and split. The dim early twilight split apart to reveal that eternal never-faltering murky red sky that hung above everywhere in the Chasm, and, as far as Lazarus knew, everywhere in Inferis. His teeth chattered and his bones seemed to vibrate, but moments later, everything was still, and, for reasons he wasn't entirely sure of, he had returned to Hell.

As if of his own will, in front of him, the mesh to the carnival had bent and buckled, split straight down the middle in a jagged, rusty parting, almost an eerie imitation of invitation pulling and tempting him further in, as if the fences and the carnival itself had a life of his own. "This is some serious Silent Hill shit..." The teenager murmured to himself, his apparent genre savvy doing nothing to save him from the further stupidity as he pushed aside the two halves of the ruined chainlink fence and stepped over the basis, entering the walled-off Inferis parallel of the carnival.

It seemed that this portion of the fence was close enough to the entrance, with a dilapidated modified cargo container changed into a small entrance booth to the carnival proper; but the red-and-white barrier had splintered and cracked, falling into two. The eerie chitterings and not-so-distant howls and growls of Demons within rang out and chilled the Hunter's very blood. Instinct kicked in and with a subtle whoosh the Nomad pistols once more appeared clasped tightly and dead still in his hands as his brow furrowed and his pupils narrowed into that hardened though shaky gaze.

Why was he doing this? He still didn't know. Maybe half for curiosity and half to prove to himself that even after the incidents at the multiplex he still had some remnant, some faded imprint of that fighting spirit he'd called upon to damn the fear that surged through his blood like a shot of supernatural adrenaline, and to dampen the pain from that shallow gash hacked through his back. But he hadn't planned on going back for a while to that hotel room either way, and this, whilst more dangerous, seemed like an infinitely more engaging - if one could call it that - plan of action.

Like he'd affirmed already. Sleep was for the weak, right?

[Alice the Chopper]

Eris often wandered the hellish landscape of Inferis, despite being born into the Spirelands, the finest sphere. In fact, Lucifer's domain was perhaps the only fine sphere of Inferis, all the others bearing some sort of great tragedy. The dark gardens and symmetrical buildings made of materials so well refined that they don't even exist in the mortal realm. It was such a beautiful little slice of hell, and Eris personally hated it. Such order was kept in that sphere, such organization. But the Entropic Chasm?

The complete opposite of that.

The she-demon always had fun in this realm, as the food was easy to get since it just sat around all day and the whole realm was in such beautiful discord. Mockingbird already had her meal for the day, and what a tasty one it was, almost sweet as the wine the lazy beast drowned itself in. Regardless, she now had nothing to do, and having nothing to do for too long is irritating. Soon it would be drawing close to an hour since she had feasted on the hooved demon's raw flesh.

As if Satan answered her desires, she soon found herself dropping the chewed up Satyr arm at the sight of something simply magnificent. What was this? It looked like some sort of festival. The silver haired demon cried out in pain, grabbing onto her head with her metal claws. The sight of this place triggered her mortal memories. Festivals, she had seen them before, yes. Nothing like the grand one that stood before her.

"Momma?" The child's quiet voice could not be heard. Lost in a forest of legs of the elders, she had to keep trying, she had to, "Momma!" Her tiny voice was nothing to the roaring of the festive music and booming voices of the men. It was no use. She would never be found. Trampled and alone, this is where it would end. The child sat down in frustration as her face became wet with tears.

What is this? Eris fell to her knees, becoming indulged in the memory, a feeling that soon overwhelmed the mental pain of it.

Had nobody seen her? How long would it be? "Momma!" With all of the strength her voice held, the child cried out. It was all for nothing, she would never be heard. At least it would be a colorful death. The jovial music, the colorful people with painted faces, the strange magic men, the delicious treats, the laughter. Yes, this would be the only acceptable place to die. The colors faded to black as her watery eyes dried up and closed. This is fate, this is destiny!

Just as sudden as it started, the memory stopped. Nothing more, nothing less. Rarely did she remember an entire memory, and this one was long compared to most. What cliffhangers. Eris dug her hands into the ground, grabbing the dirt. One foot at a time, she brought herself to her feet. As she came closer to the 'colorful' tents, she began to hear a faint but cheerful tune. It was a broken sound, which made it both happy and sad at the same time. The jovial music. Without hesitation, she jumped over the chain linked fence. it wasn't long before she heard a pair of demons coming around the corner. One slender and busty, the other round and large. Their attire...was strange for Inferis, to say the least. the men with painted faces.

Quickly, the doppelganger rolled behind the nearest tent to avoid being seen. She soon realized that there would be no escaping the encounter, as the duo were planning to turn the corner she hid behind. Fuck. Still having the upper hand, Eris quickly impaled her metal gauntlet into the larger clown's throat, ripping it out. "He-" The other clown like demon didn't get to finish that word, as Mockingbird flawlessly followed her previous assassination by grabbing the girl's head and cocking it sideways, before exposing her neck. Her blade-like teeth gruesomely ripped through and chomped their way through until there was no neck at all. The cannibal demon through the severed head and body down to the ground in a brutal fashion.

Fuckin' delicious.

After her little "dessert", the shapeshifter changed her form into the clown she had just slayed. A female form with a body type not unlike her own, it was a form far more mortal than demon. Dressed in a black and red leather, the form didn't seem to have any particular abilities. While this disappointed Eris, it was always nice to change up one's mortal form once in a while.

( Click for form image. )

With this new form, something inside of her changed. Her shattered mind broke into yet more pieces. The world appeared a little bit brighter. Hell suddenly didn't seem so bad anymore. The broken buildings. The red skies. the demons fumbling and running about. Eris laughed. Inferis wasn't scary, it was actually kinda funny. She laughed louder, and louder, and louder yet. Her maniacal voice soon echoed throughout the entire carnival grounds, filling the air for anybody there to hear.

The laughter.

[Lazarus Carter]

The flutter of inorganic Demon wings overhead gave way to a march of Aviaxes, a half-dozen circling and soaring in the most disjointed and erratic patterns in a small "v" formation overhead. They began to nosedive, and immediately that familiar cocktail of adrenaline began to surge back through Lazarus' veins, and the fight-or-flight instincts he'd become so familiar with yet so estranged from in the past few days kicked straight back in. Skirting around the ticket booth and taking cover underneath the remnants of a corrugated iron roof, he eased back the hammers on the Nomads as a series of sequential soft thud noises nearby meant that he'd been lucky enough to dodge aside and avoid being seen as quickly as he had.

The inhumane squawking and high-pitched voodoo trills of the wingless skydwellers was a relatively substantial echo, and with the base spatial awareness he had Lazarus swiftly took a bead on their current position. "Fuckin' typical." The redhead murmured in a quiet huff. "Curiosity gets me here again then a shitton of birdbrains turn up ready to cut me in half if I so much as move wrong." His irritant ramble of a monologue quickly ceased as he remembered just how many times he'd been caught out by these particular Demons - wary and perceptive at the best of instances - whilst mid-way through giving some form of speech.

Edging up to the corner, he peered around very gently, moving his body aside inches at a time until they came into full view, picking at what appeared to be a slew of already-rotting corpses strewn between two decrepit carousels, poles rusted and wooden horses splintered, great gashes carved in through the paintwork, the once-glorious red sheen of the carnival ride fading, chipping, and peeling through Inferis' obfuscating nature. The half-dozen he'd picked out were indeed a full six, spread maybe fifty metres from each other, split into pairs as each two picked at their own body, a heap of decaying vaguely humanoid flesh, decomposing and blackened, rigor mortis having set in and the blood coagulated. Whether they were human proper or simply demonic humanoids in origin was impossible to divine now.

"Six, mark..." He murmured to himself, throwing back around to the corner and taking a deep breath. The problem with this situation was that he knew from experience each Aviax would take two or three rounds, sometimes as many as six to put in the ground. With roughly twenty in each clip - he hadn't counted fully yet, funnily enough - this wasn't a problem, but the fact that the moment he let off the first shot, all of them would converge on him, screeching and whining like the grotesque avian abominations they were, made speed somewhat more essential.

As his cognition glossed over ways on to avoid this threat and the exit strategy of skulking back to whence he came and crossing over to D.C. became a more viable option, Lazarus tried desperately to think of ways to circumvent this cowardice. Though he now considered himself a formidable enough gunslinger, that sentiment of escape and lingering fear still remained in his mind, even after that turning point in perspectives in the multiplex the other day. It was out of the corner of his eye that he then saw it - not some MacGuffin to help him when he most needed it, but, infact, something he had been keeping all along.

The bandolier.

Drawing at random another magazine from the Nomads' seemingly endless chest holstered, Laz grinned as he saw that in shallow engravings on the clips' metal was a larger designation of the exact type of ammunition. "+P", it read. Scouring his brain and thousands of hours whittled away in his younger years on various mind-numbing FPS games, somehow he picked out the corresponding terminology - overpressure. Overpressure ammunition, to counter the usual, regular, standard full metal jacket rounds he loaded the Nomads with. Now he was fucked if he knew what overpressure exactly did, but with a little luck and this fresh strategy, the redhead figured that it was time to find out.

Drawing back both slides and emptying the pistols of their magazines, he loaded two fresh +P clips in, jammed full with the rounds, ever-so slightly thicker and heavier, more difficult to slide into the magazine wells, but all the same a simple affair. A final deep breath as he readied the slide on each gun. To be honest, all of this was luck of the draw. And the only difference from now and a moment ago was a single variable he wasn't even sure of. But Lazarus Carter was temperamental; and in that nature, with a little change, some vague semblance of a strategy, a touch of hope - the most overly sentimental factor of all - and a gut premonition of that cheeky luck that seemed to have hung him out to dry recently then returned in the nick of time, he threw himself out past the ticket booth, took aim with both guns, and opened fire.

The compensators dampened the recoil of the first two shots, and as the muzzles flashed, the guns jerked upwards, and two simultaneous gunshots, almost utterly synchronised, ripped through the relative silence of the chasm. Demon crows cawed and split the red skies overhead in a furious chaotic flurry that had once been a full murder. And as luck would have it, both rounds found their targets, and with a soft thwunk, tore through them and shattered their very frames in one, leaving behind an almost explosive effect. Perhaps different bullets were suited better to different targets - but as something rose up in Lazarus Carter's stomach and that jammy grin hit his face once more, he took aim as the remaining four contorted to impossible angles, realising once more that luck was on his side. Finally. Had been long enough. "Come and get me, you wingless fucks."

A hailstorm of shots echoed out further as the Aviaxes didn't break into flight but instead just leapt out of time with one another, cawing as they did in grim trills and shrill tones, bounding forward to cross the ground between them and their fresh challenger. In place Lazarus simply crossed his arms, yanked his limbs and hands about, and pulled the trigger another dozen times til naught remained but wisps of faint grey smoke from the barrels and an Aviax who had by the bullets' impacts been torn almost straight down the middle, accompanied by a deep furrow in the grit and a cloud of sawdust.

Lifting both guns to his mouth in a cringeworthy pose, he blew the smoke away, and if he had a Western desperado hat, at this point, he would have undoubtedly tipped it. "And that," Laz spoke to an invisible audience. "Ladies and gents," A cocky shrug as he returned his stature to an easy, idle, slouch, lowering the guns to become nothing more than extensions of his hands. "Is how we do things in Hell."

Ready now to advance with more vigour in his blood than ever, things seemed to be going perfectly and the entire bloody affair having had the scales tipped thus far in his favour. As the hairs on the back of his neck just fell down and the goosebumps faded from his skin, in the distance, a faint howl of eerie, high-pitched, and seemingly neverending giggling rang out amidst the skies, and sent them all standing right back up straight once more, a cursed shiver running down his spine. That... didn't bode well.

The grin weakened but did not falter completely and Lazarus continued his advance through the carnival's entrance.

[Alice the Chopper]

Bang, crack, bang. Sounds of battle could be heard throughout the haunting rides and ripped tents, as feint at they were. It sounded much like gunfire, a sound Eris wouldn't of been familiar with had it not of been for a certain Reverend who introduced her to the weapon. Several avian like screams confirmed that the firearm was victorious and had met it's mark. Such a violent weapon, tearing flesh and bone apart as if they were tissue paper. Something was going down here, and how could she be left out?

Just as Eris was about to make her way towards the source of the sounds of battle, she was interrupted by several more Aviax screams to her flank. They were probably attracted by the same noises, and planned to pick up the shapeshifter as quick prey on their way there. Well, that's probably what they thought, anyways. The trio of birds swooped down and behind a near by carousel, before circling around it and rushing at their target at almost ground level.

The demon grinned. As if such pathetic and lesser demons could even hope to take this prize. She quickly extended her arm as if she was about to punch the first scarecrow like demon that came at her straight on. The screeching monster was approaching fast and quickly, probably overexcited that their prey wasn't even attempting to take cover from them.

SNAP.

The first bird was impaled and broken upon bone, the very substance that it was made up of, for the most part. A large bladed spike had grown out of her forearm, made out of her own sturdy demonic bones. The Aviax slid off of this spear in a mess of sawdust and broken parts. Not taking any time for a break, the second Aviax came around with the third, attempting to flank the Deceiver from both sides.

They were not spared the fate of their kin, as Eris spread her arms apart and grew sharp spikes at where her fingertips once were, creating horrid and painful claws. Each winged demon met one of these terrible hands, before being crushed with the she-demon's infernal might. "Sticks and stones won't break my bones!" She said to herself, before tossing the bodies of the falsely constructed birds aside. Now, there were other matters to attend to. Eris found herself making her way towards the entrance of the dark carnival, the origin of the earlier noises.

On her walk there, she noticed several clown like demons who seemed to simply ignore her. It was strange, but she didn't mind it, as it was just less interruptions from her goal. It also likely had something to do with the shapeshifter's most recently stolen body, who almost appeared to be amongst the ranks of these vile creatures. They all had toothy smiles, something she found highly amusing and pleasing, as they almost appeared to be demented offshoots of herself.

It wouldn't be long before she was at the entrance. It wouldn't be long before she met the maker of those loud gunshots. It became obvious that it Was it simply one of these demonic clowns running around, killing a couple Aviax as she just did? That would all be found out in due time, she thought, rushing a show was never the way to go. it made for a poor experience.

She was currently passing perhaps the main game midway, as their were such things on both sides of her. games of tricks and lies, ones that were rigged so that you could never win. You can try and try and try again, but in the end, you will be left with nothing. Now that was Eris' kind of game. She was suddenly given an idea by one of these booths: why make the first strike when you could just draw them in?

The jester like demon ran over to a Test Your Strength game and manned the booth as if she owned it. the game obviously had some slight Inferis modifications, as the top level of strength was named "As Strong As The Devil!" and the lowest one simply said "Tar Baby". Activating the stand with a simple switch, the game lit up and made eerie music. It was perhaps the only manned game in the entire midway, as the clowns seemed to be busy gathering somewhere. She grabbed the megaphone and yelled out a simple and jovial rhyme to all who could and would hear.

"Come one, come all, don't have fright! Come and test your might!"

[Lazarus Carter]

"Come one, come all, don't have fright! Come and test your might!"

The laughter from beyond returned in that same hollow tone once more followed shortly by a mechanically amplified and yet bloodcurdling and eerie cry in the vein of your typical carnival announcer. However, in Inferis, the undertones hanging beneath it and the labyrinth of potential consequences unfolding in front of Lazarus in the sketchpad of his mind lead him to one conclusion. Demon carnival, someone inviting him further in, six on the kill count already? Shit was going to hit the fan.

The overpressure ammunition was still freshly loaded, but out of caution, stepping over the body of the shredded two halves of the Aviax just inches in front of him, he ejected both clips autonomously and slid a fresh pair of FMJ rounds into the wells with simultaneous resounding clicks, jabbing the bases of the magazines against his thighs and allowing the automated slide to draw back in itself. These guns were designed - by whatever cosmic higher power - it seemed, for the ultimate purpose of being dual wielded. Bandoliers, customised slides, little to no resistance jamming clips into the magazine wells - one could, with enough logical skill and practice, something Lazarus seemed to gain from simply being in Inferis, wield and reload each pistol with aplomb in a single hand.

Stepping as quietly as he could over the bodies of the Aviaxes and into the gap between the two carousels, the stench of the dead flesh the Demon vultures had been picking at reached his nostrils. Promptly the redhead felt the hairs on the back of his neck curl and a salty distaste form in his mouth. The stink, by the Devil, the stink - rotting squirrels out in the back yard that the Carter family had never known to have been there for days smelt like nothing else, but this... this just surpassed that. Dead flesh in Hell stunk with twenty times the intensity and the rotten-egg stench of sulphur curling up in tendrils down one's nostrils.

Less than eager to stay around this, part of Lazarus wanted to just bolt further into the carnival and away from the whole thing, but the tactician in him - newly formed as it was - made him stifle his gagging and simply inch gently around the carousel. It was there, through another opened metal gap in a lower internal fence this time, that he beheld a great, garish, flickering red neon-esque sign upon a comical wooden - though chipped and worn down - yellow panel reading "GAMES". Halls upon halls of various typical carnival games lined up in booths on both sides - ring toss, duck shooting, milk cans - with a single gangway down the middle, and the sound of some sort of presence from down at the end of it, those continual gentle giggles pervading the sanctity of the redhead's ears once more.

Curiosity took upon him its vicegrip once more and Lazarus advanced further in through the carnival, edging up through the booths as the noises belonging to an entity which was definitively female-sounded only swelled and grew louder. His stomach tied itself into a knot as if by instinct; not from fear, but from hot-blooded anticipation. Just who was this? Human? Or just some twisted imitation of one of his own kind. Plucking up every ounce of courage he could muster, the Demon Hunter threw himself around the corner and thrust both guns out down the single straight path with a determined grunt.

It was only when he saw the form of the being the voice belonged to clutching the megaphone that his eyebrows arched and he almost considered putting the guns down. Two arms. Two legs. Hair. Eyes. A nose. Pale skin. Human. Or something close to it. That meant- she had to be- friendly... right? Those tightened fingers curled around the grips of the Nomad pistols almost began to falter until the smarter, smaller partition of Lazarus' mind, stone-willed and not quite as naive as the rest of the redhead's psyche, knew just too well that "Demon" was a broad term here. And just because she looked human didn't mean she was.

With that in mind his grip only tightened on the pistols as he regarded her from one end of the arcade gangway, the booths bathed in the murky red twilight from above, his newfound "acquaintance", able to speak, be she human or... not... stood in front of a Test Your Strength pedestal, thrumming with broken, eerie tones that had once presumably been a symbolic and symphonic part of the cheesy overhanging carnival melody. Lazarus winced as the whole thing only waltzed further into the perfect setup of some surreal horror movie, though the whole 'being in Hell' thing kind of wrecked your genre savvy.

That said, she was only around seventy metres down the way, and more or less completely visible from where he stood - but a single path with one entrance and one exit was more than perfect ground for any sort of ambush or entrapment, especially when things didn't necessarily have to obey any Earthly laws he knew. That much his brain did remember from the masses of mind-numbing gory horror films he'd absorbed as a child. "H-hey!" The redhead shouted, before trying to affirm his presence slightly less shakily.

"Who are you?" He held both pistols up and cocked them out to the side. After no response for what felt like an eon but had barely been a moment, Lazarus shouted once more. "And what are you doing here?!" Come on, Laz, keep it together, you fuck... He told himself, iron grip around the pistols' hilts tightening as his knuckles whitened. The redhead knew he couldn't show weakness now, and though he'd quenched the majority of it, the fear and incompetence bubbled somewhere below in his gut.

Deep, soft purple synaesthetic lights seemed to exude from the girl at the end of the pathway, giving off an eerie and almost utterly inhuman tone. Lazarus didn't like this. At all.

[Alice the Chopper]

Eris smiled as somebody emerged form the murky fog. No, it wasn't a demon, but a mortal. Apparent by his fair skin and wild hair, he was young, a mere infant compared to the demon he approached. As he got closer, she noticed that he had come armed, with two small black guns in each of his hands. A month ago she wouldn't of been familiar with such weapons, but how times change. It seemed that gun-toting mortals were around nearly every corner.

"H-hey!" The mortal stopped quite some distance away from her stand. Was he cautious, or scared? "Who are you? And what are you doing here?!" Oh, he was scared. He was practically losing it already, he may of been able to fool anybody else, but not an avid killer. Fear was a beautiful emotion, any murderer and cutthroat could agree with that simple fact. It was what they strive for, that look, oh that look, that look upon their ugly face. The final scream, the last cry, the final words.

The jester like demon leaned over the counter of her booth in a casual manner, pretending to ignore the Demon Hunter's guns. "Can't you read?" The demon said with a chuckle, pointing above her head to the stand's sign, which crudely read "Test Your Strength". She then gestured towards a massive hammer, made out of some sort of black steel. It looked impossibly heavy, but in truth, the blunt weapon was hallowed out, making it much lighter than it appeared.

"Why else would you be at a carnival, to join the carnies?" Eris laughed, and to any mortals, it appeared that she was completely unaware of Inferis' hellish landscapes. As if it was all butterflies and rainbows, as if it wasn't actually all that bad. One would guess she wasn't aware were she was, she was majorly schizophrenic, or she was simply no longer with us.

"Come on, step right up! The first one's on me!" The clown said, getting on with her business at last. The game, while at first glance looked normal and fairly harmless, actually had a demented twist, like most things in Inferis. The bell ringer, which was a larger smiling skull, was rigged with a tube of acid that would spray out at anybody who landed in one of the first eight "red" categories. The higher three "yellow" categories would trigger the skull to spit out a shower of harmless cold water, and the final three "green" categories would cause a shower of black confetti.

Setting the megaphone down, Mockingbird went over to the hammer and effortlessly lifted it up with a single arm, holding it's handle out towards the gun wielding teenager's general direction. In the shadows, quickly movements could be seen. Distorted giggles could be heard. There was something lurking in this place. They were gathering and yet scrambling around at the same time, the shadow people.

There was only one thing to do.

(OOC: Sorry this is short. |:)

[Lazarus Carter]

"Can't you read?" The sarcastic tease made Lazarus grunt and almost forget where he was and just who he was dealing with for a moment. The way she so lackadaisically and amiably addressed the issues he raised in spite of their current locale and its definitive horror movie vibe - plus the fact she was speaking in this intangible other-tongue he seemed to naturally be familiar with - gave him a slightly more eerie feeling about the whole thing. Her giggles and chuckles still seemed to emanate a dark purple.

All in all, however, none of this cautious wariness was going to stop that signature Lazarus sarcasm. "What, from fifty feet away? You think I'm some sort of superhuman?" That was rhetorical. All of the things local to this land and most of the humans he'd met had some form or capacity to twist, contort, or push their bodies to bend and almost break them in performing feats that would be normally defined as impossible back on Earth. In a sense, the way he'd accustomed so swiftly to those chrome Nomads he held in his hands was superhuman in itself.

"Why else would you be at a carnival, to join the carnies?" The way in which she hissed out the final statement and broke into hysterical laughter still set Lazarus somewhat on edge. The boy gently - gently - began to make his day down the passage, checking from side to side, up in the rafters of each flickering booth, down below, and the corners and murky slat-like gaps between one attraction and another... making sure there wasn't some twisted ambush waiting for him here.

It wasn't long before he was barely ten feet from the girl proper and could gaze in full upon her appearance. She looked, essentially, like a crazy clown. Though in a sense the way in which she exposed and displayed her body was human, and, one could argue, seductive, any form of attraction one would typically feel towards this was offset - at least for Lazarus - by the shit-fucking creepy in way she was acting. Nuts or a Demon. And he didn't really feel like humouring her.

"You're one of those grifters too?" The redhead tutted, still cautiously keeping both pistols raised. "Ever cross your mind maybe I'm just coming here to get some peace and quiet?" Stupid as it did sound, trying to find a little slice of solace in Hell. Peace in Inferis. Maybe he was the crazy one in this scenario, and the tables weren't quite as uneveen as Lazarus had initially thought. Scanning her once more, he made a snide conclusion under his breath. "Probably not..."

"Come on, step right up! The first one's on me!" Hostile and still not entirely sure of whether she was a dangerous crazy or just entirely harmless, Lazarus looked her up and down once more and shook his head. He wasn't going to risk it like he had with the Reverend, but things weren't quite as simple as that. Psycho or not, if she was a human, he wanted to try and talk to her, see if she knew anything else about this place to add to the already minimalist collective knowledge at all. Maybe she could tell him about these weird lights he saw every now and then in tandem with sounds. Though, that said, they weren't exactly distracting; more just... oddly pleasant than anything else.

"I'm good." Laz stated, throwing his hands up to show distinctively his will to not participate. "Never was any good at these things anyway. More of a track runner than a weightlifter." Looking up the scales once more idly, he looked at the different category names for each of the "strength" rankings and rubbed the side of his temple with one pistol absentmindedly, keeping the other aimed at the clown girl. It wasn't long before he looked back to her. "Anyway, not to be blunt or anything, but what do I call you?"

Lazarus stared dumbly at her, realising that maybe the whole thing wouldn't quite make sense, or that he'd get a convoluted answer, though he hadn't left her much time to reply. Perhaps she was half retard crazy as well. Regardless, he wanted to clarify. "And are you from around here, or... y'know," He jerked a thumb behind him, as if that somehow signified Earth. "The place beyond the pines, not Hell, land of the living, whatever you wanna call it."

[Alice the Chopper]

"I'm good." With a frustrated sigh, the clown demon set down the over sized hammer back in it's original spot. Well, wasn't he a killjoy. Eris' boredom and frustration was only added to as the teenager continue don by asking her a series of questions. Who are you, where are you from, all of those questions. It seemed like everybody and their brother Jimmy asked these same questions. Instead of answering the red haired Demon Hunter quickly and clearly, the she-demon leaned over the counter, resting her face upon her palm with an overly exaggerated bored look on her face.

With a bored sigh, she began to speak in a slightly musical, but still downbeat voice, "Eris the terrible," The girl in heavy makeup said, finally revealing her name, or at least what she wanted others to believe was her name. "Born on a Monday, the dreariest of days, " She seemed to be reciting a famous poem, only slightly altered. Many would be familiar with it. "Christened on a Tuesday, with the foul Ottoman water." She continued, vaguely mentioned a Orthodox baptism. The shadows seemed to move in on the two as the silent laughter began to grow louder and closer.

Her words grew stronger and louder, as it was apparent that she was breaking her own boredom. Using her palms, she jumped on top of the table to sit at the edge of it, ever so slightly closer to Lazarus. "Married on a Wednesday, to her work!", Eris' voice was growing more and more exciting as she repeated the poem that only gave vague details about her mortal life. In demented reality, what she was saying was only half a joke, as it was all she really remembered from her pathetic mortal existence. It was a long downhill fight for control of that body, a fight in which she was sadly losing for the most of those years.

"Took ill on Thursday, she could barely fight it." Shapes of all sizes were starting to emerge form the shadows, forming a circle around the two. Glowing eyes of all colors, mostly red, and glistening teeth could be seen at this point. Sharp, pointy, nasty, bone grinding teeth, all in perfect little smiles. Eris soon smiled as well, joining the shadowy masses with one of her signature expressions.

"Grew worse on Friday, killed them all, she did." She giggled while reciting this part of the classic but revised poem. Grubby clawed hands emerged form the dark of all sized. Long fingers, fat fingers, short fingers, long fingers, but all clawed fingers. Some held knives, some held guns, others painted baseball bats. In fact, the weapon choice for these mysterious creatures seemed to be random - but all somehow related to practical jokes, in a very sick way. The giggling laughter grew worse as they closed in.

"Died on a Saturday, decapitated at the neck." Was this it? Would they both be ripped apart by the horde of creatures? Eris had began to wonder that herself, noting her earlier encounter with the madmen. The demons were now visible. They appeared to be clowns, much like the female one reciting her life story to the Demon Hunter, but far more disgusting and vile in appearance. One of these creatures approached the jester demon, knife in hand, ready to make his strike.

Or so it seemed. Instead of stabbing the she-demon, he simply passed right by her, using the game stand she was sitting upon as a ledge in which he jumped off of in order to get closer to Lazarus. The doppelganger smiled widely, now realizing that she may not only blend in with these monsters, but actually be their leader. This was only further confirmed when the same Smiling Man that crept up on Eris turned to look at her, and ask for orders. Something about what to do with this little one, or something along those lines. She could barely hear over the damned giggling of the dozen other crazy sentient demons. She replied to her new henchmen with a single line, a line however cryptic, they understood. Two baseball bat armed toothy clowns stepped forward, one having the build of a circus strongman, and the other, well the other was fat as a balloon. These two unique Smiling Men stepped forward to do battle, as the other ten formed an inescapable circle around the three.

"Buried on Sunday, in a mass grave." With this vague final line of the poem, the two demonic henchmen would charge at the Demon Hunter at the same time, attempting to hit him at least once in the flurry of madness. There was only one way out of this, and that was to fight.

[Lazarus Carter]

"Eris the terrible," Eris... Eris? Why did that name ring a bell? Where did he remember that from? For a moment, his psyche wandered; and Lazarus began to dwell on facts relatively ancient and beyond irrelevant. A fragmented childhood sat in boredom in classrooms listening to information that had never truly embedded itself in his mind. But for all that time wasted away plodding exhausted through classes he didn't give half a shit about, he still couldn't remember anything that would have helped him here. Eris. Where did he recognise that name from?

She was odd, really, with her sighing and her apparent boredom. "Hey, Eris the terrible. Nice to meet you." Lazarus made a quick-witted response. "I'm Lazarus the sarcastic." He smirked, quite proud of himself for such a swift retort, before realising where he was and creasing his brow once more. "But, now, Eris the terrible, you know what's on the other side of this carnival?" He began to ask, absentmindedly. For now, she seemed friendly enough. "Just having a little nighttime wander-"

"Born on a Monday, the dreariest of days," OH FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK. Everybody really needed to stop cutting him off. It was getting irritating. "Christened on a Tuesday, with the foul Ottoman water." Seriously, she'd cut him off for this? Fucking poetry? Did she have- wait... Ottoman? With a leap, she pulled herself up onto the table, giggling and jovial. This... something... "Married on a Wednesday, to her work!" Something... wasn't right.

"Took ill on Thursday, she could barely fight it." It was now that Lazarus noticed the amassing shadows, furrowing his brow proper and lips curling back into a sneer. He'd been fooled. Again. For fuck's sake. His suspicions were right. This girl he faced up against now was truly no "girl", but instead, something far different. "Grew worse on Friday, killed them all, she did." Who the fuck was she, evil Yoda? Evil Yoda with a big rack? No - he knew in his heart, in his mind, in his very soul who, or, infact, what, this Eris the terrible was. And he'd known since he'd arrived in this damned place. Just for her human appearance, he hadn't wanted to believe it. "Died on a Saturday, decapitated at the neck." Demon.

"What a shame," The redhead murmured in retort under his breath, watching as, from the shadows, emerged into full shapes those things - those devilish things - once more. Demons. But this was unlike any breed he'd seen before; not like the Aviaxes, these too were humanoid in appearance, like their apparent master, but their sentience was questionable and presumably non-existent, under the command of this Eris the Megabitch. And, worst of all, aside from the guns, and the knives, and the sharp fingernails, and the distorted giggling... what did they look like?

They looked like clowns.

He fucking hated clowns.

Two flanked him, both armed with chipped and worn baseball bats, and Laz grit his teeth in determination; both stood in ready poses, but as if waiting for some sort of trigger, the other ten circling them in an impenetrable Demon barrier and fencing them in in a makeshift arena of some sort, they stood only in an intimidating fashion, their ever-present grins not faltering for a second. One stood hulking and tall, six and a half feet, with what looked to be the mirror image of some bodybuilder on Earth, whereas his compadre was obese enough to become a singing Youtube star and/or poster boy for a campaign against McDonalds. "Alright, you wanna dance, then, boys?" The pistols in his hands clicked upwards, the hammers eased back, fresh clips hanging in the wells, ready to make some deft point blank shots. "Let's dance."

"Buried on Sunday, in a mass grave." Boom. And off they went. On cue from the clown up off sitting on the game stand shouting from the megaphone the lines of her morbid little poem. Converging on him in identical manners - the fat one just a little slower than his muscular counterpart - both heaved the baseball bats high above their heads to pull in for overhead strikes. Looking from one to another, Lazarus waited, and waited, and waited, frantically zipping his stare, shifting from one target to another. Just like music, fighting was all about one thing and one thing alone.

Timing.

And at exactly the right moment, maybe off by a few milliseconds, as the tension in their arms began to rise to its peak, Lazarus threw himself down into a crouch, and both Demons brought over their baseball bats at exactly the same time, down with superhuman force and the intent to more than likely crush the teenager's skull beneath the chipped, bloody wood. But as they did so, overswinging at exactly the same time, one bat clashed against another, and in the impact, both bounced backwards, causing the two Demons to stagger and recoil. And in this single, solitary moment in which both were occupied and somewhat stunned, the gunman skirted around the back of the fat, grinning Demon, wreathed one arm around its neck - its skin morbidly cold to the touch - in a grip with his wrist, and rose the Nomad clutched tight in the other, aiming dead-on at the muscular clown.

"See ya later, bozo." With that, Lazarus pulled the trigger thrice at his chest, and once at his head; the first three rounds slammed into his abdomen and torso and caused the clown to stumble, but it wasn't until the fourth hit the top of his head that the muscular Demon snapped his head backwards and fell to the floor, the life hissing out of him in an instant like a deflating balloon, leaving him as nothing but a thin rubbery skin, a comically morbid representation of what he once was. The redhead shivered, and looked to the struggling and wobbling obese freak beneath his grip, tightening his chokehold and raising the end of the pistol barrel to the crown of his unfortunate target's skull and pulling the trigger.

With another comical expulsion of air, the second clown deflated in but a moment as Lazarus stared with hostility at each of the ten clowns surrounding him, a low growl emanating from the bottom of his throat. Oddly, he was enjoying this; the adrenaline surging through his veins, the stench of brimstone and cordite on the air; it wasn't all just familiar to him, now. It was something beyond that. It was almost... desirable. Knowing all too well he couldn't, however, take on all twelve at once, even with pistols and the comparative speed against what were essentially big balloons dressed up as clowns, a snarling mass encircling him, the redhead looked up to the leader of his assailants and shouted at her tauntingly. "Got any more 'terrible' antics up your sleeve? Or is that all?" Probably not the best of ideas, in hindsight, Lazarus realised, looking back down and taking a quick scan of his adversaries once more. God, he really did fucking hate clowns. No wonder he'd executed those two so vindictively.

[Alice the Chopper]

Lazarus the sarcastic. Now that was a silly name. Especially for such a talented Demon Hunter. The busty clown demon smiled at amusement as the gun wielding mortal made short work of her new underlings. It was only moments before the fight was over, and the red haired teen stood in defiance against her, shouting a challenge, "Got any more 'terrible' antics up your sleeve? Or is that all?" Without saying anything in response to this, the human like demon stepped down from her seat, walking among the ranks of her minions.

Eris circled the circle of demons, inspecting each Smiling Man individually. She stopped at the third one, a rather lanky fellow who was wielding a overly tiny pistol. "I don't know, do any of you have any ideas?" She said in a comical drawn out tone, directed towards her clown henchmen. They seemed afraid to answer, looking at each other as if they were childishly signaling each other to "go ahead". The clown directly in front of Eris spoke in a quiet tone.

"W-we could shoot him?" With a swift movement, the blonde ringmaster snatched the miniature gun from the lanky creature;s clawed hand. "Oh that's a brilliant idea! He'll never see that one coming!" Eris exclaimed in sarcastic joy, which seemed to excite the lesser intelligent demon, who thought he was honestly being praised. Within seconds, the barrel of the firearm was pressed against the pale monster's bony face. "Not really." With a press of the trigger, the clown's head was blown clean off, which whizzed away like a rapidly deflating helium balloon. A fate most saw coming.

Mockingbird daintily stepped over the rubber like remains of her own slain henchmen, stepping closer to the Demon Hunter, "I have an idea!" She exclaimed, throwing the small gun aside like it was worthless. Such weapons were of only of use when some sort of sinister punchline was involved, otherwise, they were more of a cripple than anything. At least to her, the body was the true weapon.

"Let's play hide and seek!" Eris suggested in a jovial tune. In coordination with their leader, a few Smiling Men made a few disgruntled sounds of agreement, while a few more readied their weapons. All...what was it...nine, ten plus their master? Only a fool would take on such a challenge, especially when completely unaware of what they could do. Seeing his early skill in battle, she doubted him a fool, so maybe he would play along.

Eris covered her black lined eyes with her palms, as her henchmen disorderly followed suit. Not giving Lazarus much of a time to get in a response after asking her question, a single number came out of her mouth in ancient demonic tongues, "One.". She was counting. Not even a full second later, the next number was spoken, "Two." She failed to mention to just what number she was going to count to, something she was hoping Lazarus would take note of. People fear the unknown.

"Three."

[Lazarus Carter]

"I don't know, do any of you have any ideas?" The mistress of discord posed then her question to her sycophantic clown minions; dropping from her pedestal and circling them with that same sociopathic yet exuberant aura exuding from her very pores. One of them made a response; but the harlequin considered it nothing short of moronic. "W-we could shoot him?" "Oh that's a brilliant idea! He'll never see that one coming!" Huh. So she could imitate sarcasm, too. That was cute.

"Not really." Laz flinched at the sound of the gunshot, throwing an arm up over his face in stoic silence even though he knew the pistol wasn't aimed at him; but watching the clown deflate was nothing new. Demons were Demons. "I have an idea!" Great. Hadn't taken her long enough, had it? The growl in his throat rose once more as the henchmen circled around him once more, a gap where the tenth had stood leaving now only nine. "Let's play hide and seek!"

"Great," The redhead murmured for a taste of his own dry 'wit' in kind, watching quizzically as they all slammed their palms over their eyes on some silent telepathic command. "As if we hadn't already achieved scores of horror movie clichés with the clown masks, now you're all going to play hide and seek together?" Shaking his head in disbelief, Lazarus continued. "Never seen Child's Play 3? Or It?" Sarcastically, the American continued. "I am sorely disappointed in your lack of originality, here-"

"One." The clowns spoke in synchronicity. A shiver ran down the redhead's spine.

"Well fuck, that's actually kind of creepy." With that, Lazarus made a beeline for the gap where the third deflated clown skin was, leaping over the comically depressed leathery hide, and leaving the ten - with Eris the so-called 'terrible' at the very head of it - counting. After the jump, he skidded through the dirt, and spun around, grunting and raising both pistols. "Say good-"

The teenager stopped himself. Nine clowns, all armed, plus the ringleader? It was gonna take a good amount of fire to put them down, and by the time he put distance between him and the rest of 'em, he was probably up shit creek with their dispersal anyway. Not to mention that the Megabitch was probably gonna take more than a couple of shots to put down for good. She'd seemed acrobatic. So how was he going to do this? He could try, but it was risky. He could run, but there was still a flash-flood of adrenaline coursing through his body. He could trick them; but the Mockingbird, insane as she was, would probably brutally preempt a con and savagely execute him on the spot for good measure, making an announcement through her megaphone-

The megaphone.

"Two."

To this day, Lazarus still doesn't know why he picked it up, or what possessed him to; but as a sidebar, he's thankful as fuck that he chose on instinct to. A world of synaesthesia flashed around him in lights and sounds intertwining together; and all the energies created a subtle, smoothed technicolour world of hues and tints he'd never truly experienced before. It was sensory assault; and it was something he'd only been introduced to in this Hellish alter dimension, but he'd acclimatised. And whilst he knew others didn't see it; he'd never really questioned the poignance of it all. Until now.

The lyrics to a familiar song began to ring around in his head. This time, taking it away, I've got a problem... A casual stroll towards where the Megabitch had put down her megaphone - haha, that was funny - and opened his hands, letting the Nomads drop from them; but before they landed in the dirt, two simultaneous flashes of light brought them from this void and into another. With me, getting in the way, not by design...

"Three."

That was how strong his reliance and assurance in this so-called blind "plan" was, with the megaphone. That he'd denied himself of his other weapons - and for what, a fucking hand-portable tannoy system? So I take my face and bash it into a mirror... A grin as he ground to a halt and reached out to grasp the white finish of the scratched amplifier. It was only instinct that was driving him to do this; something above and beyond thought processes, something he'd never experienced before Inferis. Something below the chemicals and the neurotransmitters, the adrenaline and the dopamine; it was something primal, something fiery, something hellish that laid latent within. I won't have to see the pain, bleed, bleed...

The lyrics stopped then only being in his head as Lazarus began to murmur, switching instead to Demonic. "This state is elevating..." Reaching down, he let his grasp tighten and turned back to the ring of counting clowns with their blackened palms clasped over their eyes, reaching out a finger to click the switch from its printed black OFF to ON. It was getting to game-time, now. "As the hurt turns into hating."

"Four."

"Anticipating..." The murmur came. The spectrum of fluid gradient colour spilt forwards from his lips in what held the qualities of almost a vapour as he rose the input of the megaphone to his mouth, and threw one leg forwards, curling his other hands into a fist and striking it into a sky. With the final finger he tightened on the trigger; but instead of bullets from the other end of the megaphone there came only sound. "...ALL THE FUCKED UP FEELINGS AGAIN!"

[INITIATE BATTLE THEME]

The whine of feedback hissed out beneath the lyrics as they kicked into gear and Lazarus truly pulled himself into the music. The colour had spilt out into the last shout, but it was nothing truly there; just a vaporous energy that had swirled around and dissipated. But it was still energy, no? And as he'd thought - he saw it and others didn't for a reason. Perhaps that reason was indeed that he could take this energy - and he could use it.

"THIS HURT INSIDE IS FADING!" All the sound came out in a great, violent, swirling and angry red burst from the front of the megaphone, from the mouth of it. The energy was generating; but as of yet there was not enough of it, and somehow, Lazarus, on some level, found himself now tugging at parts of his body that were and simultaneously weren't biologically connected to his form, but instead to his spiritual aura, in order to control and preserve this energy, keep it moving, keep it present. "THIS SHIT'S GONE WAY TOO FAR!"

Another gush of energy spilt forth; and now, there was enough. A single index finger unfurled from the curled up fist, and rearing back, Lazarus readied himself for another scream as the accusatory digit landed on the first of the clowns in his vision, the closest. "ALL THIS TIME I'VE BEEN WAITING!" And that was it; the trigger. All of the energy stored forged itself into a ring, curling itself up into a hollow circle, luminescent, bathed in and forged of the purest energy he had generated. And for a moment it lingered, but no longer; after which it launched itself on a path towards the clown, shearing through the air with a screeching noise of static and distorted feedback.

It slammed into the clown with a deep, auditory rumble, and the energy dissipated into a sweeping shockwave, a concussive burst through the air of a small radius that sent the two other Smiling Men closest to the clown which had been struck flying off into an assortment of arcade stalls down the pathway. A grin hit Lazarus' face; his hands began to grow clammy and tremble. What had he learnt to do? What instinct was this that had allowed him to not only conjure pistols, but manipulate the energy he saw when no-one else did?

He recoiled once more, and moved off ever so slightly to the right, and in a sequence of movements, slammed his foot into the ground, screwed up his eyes, lowered that accusatory digit like a signal of impending doom as the clowns could only look on in absolute horror and true knowledge of what came next. Then he screamed through the megaphone again. "NO, I CANNOT GRIEVE ANYMORE!"

The energy here took no time to store; instead simply forming itself swiftly into one of those iridescent rings and flying through, slamming into another one and knocking three aside; the rumbling echo faded once more as the glimmering shockwave faded from view. Thuds again as more of the grinning circusdwellers were thrown, limbs contorting uncontrollably as they hit the decrepit, peeling wood of boarded-up, altered, and surreal carnival stores. "FOR ONCE INSIDE AWAKING!" Another ring formed; another shot went out; the concussive shockwave knocked the last three aside deftly and Lazarus momentarily lowered the megaphone.

Panting, breath heated and seething between his teeth, the redhead sighed and watched; whilst some of the clowns had been slammed against jagged planks of wood, impaled, and thus the life had hissed out of them leaving nothing but a plastic and deflated imitation of what had once been a semi-legitimate threat, the remainders somehow regained their footing from their falling places, and rejoined with their stumbling, exhausted, half-limping returns to that very same ground. With five felled, four entered the ground near their harlequin once more, the count having ceased. For it was truly showtime now; and Laz still had another two lines left.

With the back of his fist he wiped the sweat from his brow and rose the megaphone once more. And in those vile and grotesque mask-like imitations of human faces, he saw apprehension as they all ground to a fault. Dumbasses. Course he wasn't done yet. "I'M DONE, I'M NOT A WHORE!" One ring formed; but simply held static in the air, slightly to the left. "YOU'VE TAKEN EVERYTHING..." With that growl, another scarlet circle drew itself up, roughly the same size as the first, aligned roughly, still dripping with fizzling beads of what appeared to be incorporeal and intangible almost liquid-esque energy. "AND, OH..." Then, finally, a third, and final ring, of the same colouration, drew up, and Lazarus backed up, raising his leg and that targeting finger for his victims once more, and all at once, threw it down and lunged forwards, thrusting and stretching as far as the last ounces of might triumphed over what was coming to be a draining exhaustion for presumably using this ability so much... and the final three rings of this enigmatic and as of yet unfound ability fired off towards the last four wide-eyed clowns standing.

"I CANNOT GIVE ANYMORE!"

In synchronicity they flew; and with greater velocity and a louder, screeching, harrowing whistle than ever before. Some of the four remaining turned, and with their morbidly disproportionate - either lanky or obese - figures, began to run away in a tottering stumble; and some simply stood there, wide-eyed, fearful and acceptant of their fate. And then, all at once, the three rings merged together, the energy forging itself into one bright, almost flame-like orange-red ring of pure, and absolute power.

And when it slammed into the final quartet of clowns with such power that even Lazarus flinched, throwing a hand up over his eyes so not to blind himself with the synaesthetic though now universally visible energy, the force of the shockwave that swept the very air and made the ground between his feet tremble with an earthy groan, torn and tattered pieces of leather-plastic skin of the Smiling Men were flung in every direction at the explosion's ground zero, leaving now the hoarse-voiced redhead to drop the megaphone, growl, and stare off at the last one standing. Fittingly enough? The girl. The ringleader. The harlequin.

The Mockingbird.

Now, it was just them. Eris the Terrible; and Lazarus the Sarcastic.

[Alice the Chopper]

As the demonic clown reached the count of four, she heard a crude static noise followed by words from the teenager. The words were perhaps the most outspoken and loudest the red haired Demon Hunter had spoke the entire night, well, at least that the shapeshifter had heard, anyways. "...ALL THE FUCKED UP FEELINGS AGAIN!"

As he spoke, something happened. Peeking out form her fingers, she could see no visible anomalies, but the air just simply felt different. There was power in it, much like the air felt before a storm.  He continued on with his powerful and commanding lyrics in the demonic language, giving it yet a more earthshaking sound. "THIS HURT INSIDE IS FADING!" It was nothing but a bluff. So he didn't want to run? he would regret that later. Yelling out against the hunter's resonating voice, she counting her countdown, "Five!" The clowns, while more hesitant that their leader, followed along.

"THIS SHIT'S GONE WAY TOO FAR!" She was drowned out by his enhanced voice, causing the demo to step back a few steps. And thankfully, at that. "ALL THIS TIME I'VE BEEN WAITING!" With that, it was as if the sound suddenly became a solid projectile, creating a shockwave that blasted two of the Smiling Men into a series of old arcade stalls. The creatures died instantly on impact, one nailing a dart stand which caused not just one but a serious of horrible popping noises, and the other was promptly impaled on a plank of broken wood. So, he had a few tricks up his sleeve, did he?

Eris ceazed to count at this point, as it was no longer the game they were playing. No, it appeared that the tables have turned. Or at least it would be fun to let the boy think that for a little while. "NO, I CANNOT GRIEVE ANYMORE!" He continued on with his song, letting out yet another powerful energy based shockwave, sending yet three more of her demonic minions flying into the carnival's props. This time, the ringleader turned to face her fallen comrades, to notice that two of them had survived the blast. Heh. He couldn't even finish them all off.

"FOR ONCE INSIDE AWAKING!" Knocking another three down, but failing to kill them all once again. A repeated move. Tricks like that would only get somebody so far in a fight like this. Several of the clowns returned to the doppelganger's side as Lazarus prepared a amplified version of what was previously being thrown at them. Continuing on with the lyrics of the song, he formed three energy rings, before finally releasing them into explosive chaos with the final verse: "I CANNOT GIVE ANYMORE!" With that, all ten of the Smiling Men were vanquished, reduced to nothing but rubber like skins of their former selves.

Slowly lowering her hands down from her face and taking a look around to see all of her henchmen killed, Eris comically stepped back, only to fall upon her butt, scattering the rusty sand of the carnival's streets. She waved her arms up in a frantic fashion, "I surrender!" The Mockingbird shouted out in French, before following it up with a translation, "I surrender!" She at first seemed genuine, but would simply start a dark chuckle in response to whatever Lazarus had to say at this point. Perhaps the most disturbing laugh yet, it started out slow. "Ha...ha...haha..ha.." Then it became progressively louder, and higher pitched, making it all the more unstable. "HaHAhaha...haHAhahahHAha..haHA" She would continue on even louder yet as shadow figures came out from every nook and corner of the carnival. She laughter was visibly hurting her lungs, which caused her to grasp her knees as twice-or thrice-as many sharp mouthed clowns appeared from the shadows.

"HaHAHAHAHHAhA HAHA...HAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAhaHAHAhahaHAHAhahAHA!"

The jester almost screamed, tears coming from her eye. What was so funny? Well, he honestly thought he had just evened the odds, that's what. He didn't know how wrong he was, even if he didn't speak these words she assumed. The clowns closed in on their position, the ringmaster still sitting on the ground, just now trying to stop laughing. After a few coughs and heavy wheezes, she finally achieved this, breathing now in heavy pants.

Through her heavy breath and teeth and still sitting on the ground, the clown said but two words to the Sarcastic as her minions closed in on him, with full intent to cause as much pain as possible: "Better run."

[Lazarus Carter]

"Je me rends!"

Huh? French? He didn't speak surrender- "I surrender!" ...oh. The translation came moments later; she was actually 'surrendering'. Of course, this faux submission was the oldest trick in the book, and Lazarus kept his hefty new weapon, the firearm that was indeed the megaphone fate had presented before him to conjure up this strange new power from within - a strange new power that still left his fingertips thrumming with energy and the world spilling with a technicolour blur of synaesthetic, epileptic colours.

In place of stifled sarcasm came only silence from the redhead. Part of fighting with a sociopath was that their attack patterns, though unorthodox, and unpredictable, became in a sense understandable: they never gave up. There was always something coming next. "Ha...ha...haha..ha.." And there it was; that same harrowing Chucky-esque laughter she'd come out with before. Typical horror movie crap. Though Laz arched an eyebrow; he did little else, his genre savvy saving him the trouble of having hairs rise up on the back of his spine- "HaHAhaha...haHAhahahHAha..haHA" Okay fuck maybe that was a little creepy.

Though if he noticed it, he didn't show it; he didn't flinch, he didn't tremble, he didn't let his grip fall or falter on the microphone no matter how clammy and sweaty his hands grew clasping the plastic mechanism. Lazarus Carter kept his eyes narrowed and very much on the prize; that Megabitch Eris' head. Not literally; decapitation was bloody work, and he could get a little squeamish, but she was really starting to grind him.

"HaHAHAHAHHAhA HAHA...HAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAhaHAHAhahaHAHAhahAHA!"

Where did sociopaths learn their shit from? The school of stock evil laughter? Goddamn, she never shut the fuck up. If anything, half of this was freaking Lazarus out whilst the other half was just consistently irritating him, and even he wasn't sure if the sweat beads collecting on his brow and hands were from agitation or just generally being horrified. Keep it together, you fuck. The redhead told himself, clamping down hard on the megaphone - she had something in store. Of course she did.

And with the laughter, he'd ignored the viscous murky smog that had been collecting and reforming, amorphous initially; but all those pairs of piercing, slanted red eyes dotted within the abyss she could seemingly conjure on command eventually began to took shape. The ring of shadows converged around him; and just as the utterance of her final, incisive threat came through, they all took upon the closest thing to a 'real', semi-physical form they'd get in this depraved dimension, and Eris hissed out what would hopefully be her last. "Better run." A growl through clenched teeth.

And, well, she was right. Two he could deal with. Ten were difficult, but with that newfound revelation of power, not beyond impossible. But now, twenty-five, maybe thirty of the rubber clowns converged around him, each grinning to inhuman and unnatural lengths, baring teeth and knives and jabbing at the air near Lazarus with a thin, ever-swirling, dizzying circle around him. "Stay still, you bastards." Tenacious, as he'd learnt to be over these past few weeks, he gripped the haft of the megaphone steady and rose it to his mouth; with this defense mechanism, unless they were utterly moronic - which was debatable - none would so much as risk as approaching him from the front. It was, however, only a matter of time til the clowns realised they could flank or stab him in the back without soliciting any real damage.

As for tactics, he wasn't quite sure what to do at first. Heart in his mouth, for the first time in what felt like a while, but had really only been days, if even that, Lazarus Carter panicked. One shout would set them all off on his ass; and if he switched to the guns and started shooting, he was royally fucked either way then. Maybe he'd take down five, possibly six, seven or eight if he was lucky before one of swirling mass, thirty-strong, shanked him in the back, and that would be all she'd wrote. The constantly-moving, impossibly-grinning maelstrom of disproportionate rubber limbs clutching whatever weapons they could was beginning to tax the boy, and the spirals were growing closer around him.

And then it clicked. Eris herself had given him the solution. Escape; or at least, the illusion of it. Though he'd reliably guaranteed himself that today, he would steadfast stand his ground - as much as he was sort of regretting that decision at this current point in time, wishing he could opt out now - all he needed was an opening. Then, he could let his own two legs take him as far as he needed, put distance between him and the swelling mass of clowns, get them in his sights, and shout until they all just blew over.

In the harlequin's body he'd noted a sufficient effort and strain put into summoning each of these baggy clown pricks; and this last burst had winded her, caused her to grasp her knees. The fight with her mooks, her grunts, her footsoldiers, whatever they were... it was undoubtedly coming to a close and would soon be concluding altogether. But til then, Lazarus took a deep breath of the musty, humid, Inferis air; and reassured himself of that fact. Told himself this was the home stretch, and raised the megaphone, flicking it on once more with for an unwittingly final scream from the mouth of the device.

Timing, however, was everything. If he didn't get enough of them in a cone knocked down, he wasn't going to be able to get that opening he needed, the ring would close up before he could get out of there. If he tarried too long in the epicentre of this rubbery whirlpool, he'd end up with a shiv in his back. It was trying desperately to avoid either of the two extremes; and when enough of them packed together and lined up like bowling pins, Laz cracked a grin and unleashed a scream, the feedback hissing through and into a great amplification of his voice.

"GO FUCK YOURSEEEEELVES!" Yet another technicolour disc, hollow as it was, formed in front of Lazarus' face; and for a moment it spun and gathered energy, whirring and thrumming as the synthetic, synaesthetic construct it was; but knowing full well the brunt of the concussive impact the Smiling Men were about to take head on, almost immediately, the teen threw up an instinctive arm in front of his face, and let the driving force of the energy ring launch itself into the masses barely feet away from him, releasing a grand, sweeping shockwave.

Doing so swept a solid third of the thirty-strong clowns from their feet; and stunned the remainder momentarily, even sending a great, lurching feeling through Laz's own stomach, and almost knocking him over. However, the only one who had been braced for it, with some strange force of will he'd remained standing. A series of sequential, yet comedic pop sounds, followed by the dull sssssssssssss of releasing air let the redhead know he'd downed five, maybe six of the Smiling Men for good, leaving around another twenty-five.

But the battle was far from over, and the war even further from won. Vaulting over the air-filled bodies - the front deflating, the full concussive shock having crushed them completely - Lazarus broke into a sprint over the downed smiling men, and, in that instant, did what he did best: did what he had been recognised for at school, across the county, and almost across the state he'd lived in, but having fallen short of the mark one too many times to persevere again before leaving for college. He ran. Without looking back. Panting haggardly and throwing arms up on either side like a goddamn Terminator. No acknowledgement of the morbid mixture of flatulence and inhuman panting that came from the rubbery airbags that followed him, lumbering and unwieldy - whether lanky or obese - in their pursuit of the comparatively streamlined teenager.

And when he had finally sprinted for what felt like eons but had only been moments, and the boiling of his blood came not from adrenaline but too from exertion, having put a good hundred metres between he and his quarry, Lazarus spun and rose the megaphone to his mouth, ready to scream once more. "DIIIII-" But when naught came forth save for the usual sputter of his voice and a pitiful electric whining, the synaesthetic blur that usually emerged from the device's mouth faltered and dissipated in but moments. He froze, and came to a rather damning conclusion - the megaphone was out of batteries.

It was ironic to think that such a menial issue could make the cut for life and death in Inferis; but whilst this was of course a problem, Laz only gritted his teeth and tossed the hunk of now-useless plastic aside, skittering across the hardened Chasm ground. "Okay..." With that, he rose both his hands and snapped his fingers. In an instant, the sleek, chromed metal of the Nomads appeared once more, freshly-loaded with magazines as he aimed them both directly down his line of sight at the lumbering horde of rubber clowns. "Time for plan B."

It was first that he pulled the trigger and the round erupted, that with the sound came a far more glorious muzzle flash than usual, an angry burst of vibrant orange. And once more he felt that tugging at his very core; and realised then that the megaphone wasn't the only source of synaesthetic noise. The first round fired from that left pistol pulled itself through the air and carved a trail as it slammed into one of the Smiling Men at the crowd's forefront, easily eviscerating the rubber of its face and deflating it with yet another comical hiss of air, but it was what followed on, a great lump of luminescent orange energy from the very sound of the gunshot, that held the most significance in Lazarus' fusillade.

Like a thrumming missile of pure energetic essence, it curled through the air, far slower, but carrying far more weight and gravity in tow. Following mainly in the bullet's path, Lazarus was unable to truly direct the projectile, but considering the fallen clown had simply been trampled over by his comrades and replaced, expendable in its very nature, when the revolving, glowing ball struck the front of the crowd, it detonated with a concussive shockwave, identical to that conjured by the energy discs he crafted with his own voice, yet smaller. However, the energy appeared more concentrated, and at the centre of the crowd, dispersed half a dozen of the Smiling Men, and caused them to deflate on impact.

Instinctively, and in response, the teenager grinned.

His voice hoarse, and the trifecta of his mind, body, and soul - for here it held weight far more than anywhere else - tiring, his muscles stricken with exhaustive ache, he held up both pistols and pulled the triggers in alternation. "AhahaHAAA!" Lazarus howled, ever triumphant. With each explosive gunshot followed on another energy grenade of varying colours; some yellow, some red, some orange, some even a silvery-white, but never quite a pure representation of that blank tone. "I FUCKING LOVE THESE THINGS!" It took only six or seven trigger pulls separately before the clowns were all but completely dispersed, barely four or five left crippled and trying to pull themselves up from the floor.

The earth had been shredded and upturned in some places, and by his feet sat a collection of spilled out cartridge casings, the final one shed still smoking. With this, he stalked forwards, holding the cold gunmetal of the Nomads down at his hips as he walked over a floor that may as well have been entirely constructed of the patchwork rubber that was the clowns' skin, for the amount that had deflated to comical, pancake-like shadows of their full forms. As he drew past the wounded Demons, showing no mercy as they snarled or whimpered in his direction, he rose up the pistols to either side and pulled the trigger, refraining at this proximity from triggering the manipulation of the muzzle flash into bombs.

However, his body was indeed utterly exhausted; this sort of activity was exertion of an unfamiliar sort, that seemed to drain him far more than cross-country running or the hundred-metre sprint ever had. Not only was his body aching and longing for even so much as a sit-down, stopping only momentarily in his continual walk, but his mind and very soul dulled. What he'd give for a steaming hot cup of coffee right now; but the harlequin was close, he knew, as he returned to his original position, driving himself on just for the last stretch of the journey.

His voice was crushed and his throat dry; such a burst of exertion over the past few minutes - that, frozen in combat and in his mind, had seemed like almost decades - meant that he wouldn't dare again using this newfound ability, fun as it was, for fear of collapsing on the spot. Jesus; if he'd have known the toll it would take on him, physically and spiritually, he would have been... slightly more sparing. And then, as she came into view, the Megabitch once more, Eris the Terrible, he rose one of the pistols up and fired a badly-aimed shot, flying wide, the round pinging off the nearby metal of an arcade sign.

"So..." The redhead panted, grinding to a halt. He hadn't wanted to stop; purely for fear of being unable to get back up again. Even if he wanted to cross back now, he wouldn't be able to. Not whilst she was here. That meant one thing and one thing alone. He had to execute this whore, this ringleader, the most human of all the horrific creatures he'd met here so far, before he could return home, and clean up his conscience. "...I... ran.." Even his words were detached, long, drawn breaths having to be taken between them. "...now... it's... your turn." Came the vicious ultimatum, the statement filled with absolute though exhausted vigour, anger hissing, seething through gritted teeth, the crimson of his irises twinkling beneath a red sky and the shell of a burnt-out sun above.

Finally, he rose the pistol and aimed it dead-off at the clown's torso, his grip shaking and the aim less-than reliable. The redhead caught his breath, then: "Run." Came the snarl down at his newfound nemesis. Now, it seemed, the tables had been turned. In this, he almost wanted her to try and escape; so he could pursue, and in that, they could have some grandiose showdown. For even all the fighting that had occurred with her pathetic excuses of minions had not quite been enough - and when he vanquished this one, for the comparative torment of forty-two or so strong clowns she'd put him through, he wanted it to be fulfilling, to know he'd slain such a Demon of calibre.

[Alice the Chopper]

"Stay still, you bastards." Was this teenaged Demon hunter actually going to try to continue to fight, despite still not knowing what the ringmaster herself could do? Sure, calling forth these demonic clowns was taking it's toll on her soul energy, but she had method to her madness. In her "fallen down" position, she was actually resting her muscles, preparing for the fight that was surely to come. This wasn't the demon's first rodeo.

Her laughter was but a silent and muffled giggle by this point, watching her henchmen close in on Lazarus, surrounding him on every angel and on every side weapons ready for stabbing and shooting and hitting and all of that wonderful stuff. Their grins grew wider as they closed in, revealing their horrible smiling mouths in which they are named after with every grisly detail. The yellowed carnivorous teeth of the clowns glistened in the Infernal light as their saliva disgustingly highlighted them. At this moment in time, the mortal-like monsters truly appeared more demon than human, true to what they were. It would be over soon. He didn't have the guts. He was probably pissing himself at this very moment. The jester laughed.

"GO FUCK YOURSEEEEELVES!" The jester frowned. Lazarus yelled out this proclamation, which was of course followed by a wave of explosive shockwaves, knocking down a good number of her minions that were just so damn close to ending his life. Oh well, it just seemed that the show would have to go on. Besides, he hadn't even made it to the main event yet. At this point, brushing the dust out of her eyes, the harlequin saw the teenager take her advice, hurdling over a few fallen Smiling Men on his way out. He was already long out of range by the time she had to yell out a comment, so she refrained from doing so, simply laughing once more.

The battle that took place after these events was out of Eris' control, as the Demon Hunter eventually overwhelmed her entire force of demons with a newly found technique. So, he could create shockwaves with any source of noise? She wasn't exactly sure how he was doing this, but that was he guess, and she didn't care to think about it any further. He would soon be sliced up like the rest, so what did it matter? The black and red clad ringmaster finally decided to get to her feet, casually wiping the dirt from her clothes. The demon then proceeded to crack her neck in apparent annoyance, frustrated that her entire horde of minions was vanquished by a lone and weak mortal.

As lone shot hit one of the nearby arcade stands as the blue pupils of the ringmaster turned to face her enemy, who had at last made it back to her location. "So..." He was clearly out of breath. "...I... ran.." Clearly tired. "...now... it's... your turn." What was he talking about? Couldn't he see that this battle was over with? A mortal surely couldn't have any fight left in him.

"Run."

Ha! The demon laughed at him as he said this word, mocking her earlier statement. So it was to be played like that, was it? As she laughed, her form began to alter, now showing what she truly looked like. The clown's attire changed to fit more that of a scantly clad jester as her mouth filled with razor sharp teeth, not too different from her own henchmen. Her icy blue retinas changed to a foul pink color only seen by the likes of the citizens of Inferis. her once blonde hair turned a silver color as the transformation completed itself. It wasn't a show of intimidation, but rather a show that she was prepared to fight. After all, the deceiver still appeared rather human. For a demon, anyways.

"Oh I'm so scared!" Eris mocked Lazarus in an exaggerated voice that wasn't exactly her own. Her long tongue reached out to lick the side of her mouth, dealing with a painfully annoying cut just small enough to cause dryness of the lips. She grinned widely and got into a fighting stance as if she were about to rush the Demon Hunter in a flinch inducing action, but instead quickly turned around and sprinted away, taking his advice as he took hers. Any shots fired at her would be skillfully dodged through a minor display of mobile acrobatics.

The demon turned into the second building on her right, and perhaps one of the closest ones. It stood out amongst the others like a sore thumb, being distorted in shape and decorated with strange clown like ornaments. The entire complex was titling to one side, and then to another side. It was a fun house, or at least a hellish version of one. And upon closer inspection as the jester ran inside, it was one filled with mirrors on every wall, making finding these such walls a difficult task. Paying close attention to her shadow, the harlequin had little to no trouble navigating this, quickly making her way back to the end of the maze, then turning around and waiting for the teenager to catch up. The labyrinth of mirrors had in fact many different paths, and the one Eris reached the end of was only one of these.

Waiting a few seconds to ensure the redhead had breached the fun house, she eventually started to playfully whistle before finally speaking once more, "Why do you kill us, Lazarus? Do you think you're better than us?" She didn't seem to be joking, speaking in a far more serious tone that echoed throughout the entire maze. "Or are you just bored? Frustrated with life?" All questions she didn't really care to hear an answer for. "Have you ever considered that you're just like us? Just like me?" The demon continued on her little speech. "All it takes is one bad day, Lazarus, and then you're crazy like the rest of us." She extended a bone from her forearm and scraped a nearby mirror, creating a horrible noise that echoed throughout the maze, giving a hint to her location, as if her speech wasn't one enough.

She was ready for him.

[Lazarus Carter]

"Oh I'm so scared!" Without bothering to reply Lazarus haphazardly raised the pistol and launched a shot in her direction. It would have gone wide; but through some macabre, supernatural Demon reflex arc, Eris the Megabitch would apparently have managed to curve herself around the path of the round, Neo-style, and essentially dodge a fucking bullet. Well, he presumed, anyway. One round was one. Even Keanu had gotten skinned by one of the Agent's bullets-

Right, back on track. "What the fuck..." Lazarus muttered subsonically in his native English, before turning back to the harlequin. For what seemed like an eternity in his approach, she made no show of movement - however, when her head turned to a far larger complex, a warehouse-style building fashioned of rusting, corrugated metal and rotting plywood pierced by thin, coin-thick rays of red-tinged light. It was distorted in the shape of its construction - allowed clearly by the cheap materials with which it had been put together - and decorated with badly-painted clown motifs and cheap ornaments which the teen could almost swear he could notice turning to face him in his periphery when not fully concentrating.

It was in the split-second he turned away that the jester made a beeline for the building; and in that instant too he realised its purpose. A funhouse. House of mirrors. One of those shitty and confusing mazes. Otherwise engaged, the harlequin's surprising alacrity beat him to the punch; by the time he so much as rose and aim the pair of pistols, she was already a blur halfway to the entrance, and all of his shots whizzed past until the magazines clicked empty and the surrounding booths were riddled with the copper jacketed eleven-millimetre rounds.

Not bother to string together curses, Lazarus simply gritted his teeth and emptied the wells of each pistol as he strode over towards it, before loading a fresh pair of clips into each of the handguns' hilts with a pair of simultaneous noises, resulting in a dynamic, dual, resounding click. Pressing himself against the entrance, he shook his head in cynical despair and cast a glance to the flickering neon sign up above, reading Mirror Mirror, and sneered at the sound of looping clown laughter in the overhead, perforated entrance speakers ahead. "You'd think I never watch horror movies..."

With the genre savvy remark over and done with, when he came into the Hall of Mirrors proper, he was greeted with - no shit, as someone would expect - wall upon wall of mirrors, angled so to confuse the subject. When the place was packed, it was hilarious, and the novelty, though short-lived, was enjoyable, for kids especially; on your own, it was just something between an ego-trip and a hallucination, seeing dozens of yourself as you strode down a path made entirely of reflective metal. It was easy enough to become disorientated on Earth - add Inferis into the mix and a lethal female Joker that could be waiting around every corner? Adrenaline rush aside, it was still something of a problem.

[INITIATE THEME]

"Why do you kill us, Lazarus? Do you think you're better than us?" The eerie acoustics of the place made Eris' statement resonate, and sent a shiver down the redhead's spine which even he himself tried to deny in his own psyche, irrespective of just how creepy she was. Oh, and didn't she know it; that instability, that impending insanity, the figurative mental sword of Damocles hanging over her head, the fraying rope that could snap at any time and unleash utter chaos - that was where he found the source of his concern mixed into the melting pot with a sprinkling of fright and childish alarm. He'd never liked clowns. Who had?

"Think?" He murmured back, before realising the potential for echoes in this harrowing place. It wasn't as if it was only the vision of himself reflected, as he began to walk, but the resonating tones of his voice, almost amplified and distorted as it broached the further boundaries of the tilted building, that seemed to be ricocheting and refracting also. "Try know, ya' freak." With each of the guns held half-ready to either side, the addition of further chrome only made the place even more confusing with a blur of reflective, brushed metals everywhere the redhead looked.

Through the straight passage he walked slowly, creaking footsteps as the Demon continued to howl through the complex - her voice sounded near enough, but what could one truly be sure of in this Hell? For even his senses had deceived him here before. "Or are you just bored? Frustrated with life?" Bored? Well, he hadn't considered himself so, but he guessed that this was much more interesting than tapping away at keyboards and marking down time signatures. Music was one thing; but blowing apart Demons? Another entirely. A supernatural thrillseeking climax.

The synaesthesia wasn't lending itself - with the echoes in here coupled with a reflective maze designed to disorient in the first place, he was almost blinded, let alone able to navigate anything but a straight path. Everything was... glimmering. It was... slightly dissuading. "Have you ever considered that you're just like us? Just like me?" A snarl brewed beneath his breath for a moment before the redhead suppressed it; that was personal, but he couldn't let it get to him. He was NOTHING like that bitch. For starters, he wasn't dead. Or evil. Or going to be.

"All it takes is one bad day, Lazarus, and then you're crazy like the rest of us." Once more the Montanan twitched. Sure he'd slain, cut a bloody path on his entrance into Inferis, but he was doing what he thought he should. And though a Hell existed, to him, nothing proved a Heaven, or the existence of God - was this place even really Hell, or was that just a wide-spread assumption? He'd done what he had to survive, he'd only ever defended himself. There was no malice in his blood as he rose his pistols and pulled the triggers. Only conviction. Sheer, raw, conviction, seething and red as the liquid from his own beating heart. A harrowing screeeeeeech rang out from a distinctive location in the funhouse; a synaesthetic burst through the walls and through the almost blinding mess of chrome and reflections, gave an appropriate bead on Eris' position away. Showtime.

Grinding to a halt, between his obfuscated vision, feeling like he'd traversed miles but knowing it was barely metres, he made out the outlines of a junction in front of him. "Fuck this." With that, the redhead rose both hands to his side; but instead of aiming the guns forwards, outstretched them, pointing them straight out to his sides. Flanked by mirrors, he eased back the hammers with a synchronised pair of clicks, and with no apparent target in sight, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and stepped forwards.

First he pulled the trigger of the right pistol with an echoing crack. The round carved clean through the air and slammed into the mirror, shattering it with an ugly, spidery patter within. Three steps forward. Then a crack on the left. Another mirror shattered. Three steps. Crack, the right gun once more, a third mirror down. And this cycle continued. With every three steps he alternated his shots and shattered another mirror, before, finally, the acceleration only increased. And suddenly the point was clear: for the irritation they posed, Lazarus was shooting out the mirrors as he moved.

Step. Step. Step. Crack. Step. Step. Step. Crack. Momentum began to build with every stride. Step. Step. Step. Crack. Step. Step. Step. Crack. And soon he found himself not walking, but running. Stepstepstepcrackstepstepstepcrack. It was his way of resolving the situation, and having isolated the origin of the noise the harlequin had made, he could stride through even as blind as a bat, leaving a trail of cartridge casings and cordite behind, shattering every mirror for the inevitable moment that he did so open his eyes.

And when he did, there she was. Smoke trailing up in among heated gunmetal. Two switches eased away, two empty magazines clattered to the floor. Two fresh clips slid into place, two slides drawn back. Two hammers eased down, two hands raised up. Every mirror behind him was shattered; his white visage tainted with shards of a deep silver. "Hi." Backed up against a dead end, the glimmering remnants of the last mirrors in this passage still there.

A wicked grin. Lazarus knew the tables had been turned. She was fast - but she was boxed in, and nowhere near stupid enough to risk two full barrages. "I'm not sure if you expected me to find you or not, but, frankly, I don't give a fuck." The redhead stated blankly and bluntly, as if it were an absolute statement. "And for a rebuttal, I'm nothing like you, you sadistic whore." That smile only widened, cracking open further and white. Who had the upper hand now? He'd like to see her summon another rubber fatty in here, for all the good it'd do. Just block up the passage.

"However, before you prove to be another minor irritation to anyone else here, I've got something to do." Raising both the pistols directly at her head-height between his standing point and the end of the passage where she held herself. "Auf wiedersehen, au revoir, arrivederci, goodbye, whatever language you might want." He cocked his head to the side, but here, his eyes narrowed. Vindictive crimson slits. No more fucking about. "I prefer these as a simpler alternative." Raising the pistols in a simple gesture - nothing said "goodbye" like the barrel of a smoking gun. She'd had her moments to try and toy with him and miserably fail; now it was his turn to rub in the impending nature of her current situation. That metaphoric sword of Damocles had become very much literal.

Finally, the grin fell flat.

"Game over." And with that, he rose the pistols, and he fired.

[Alice the Chopper]

"Hi." He at least he had found her. Eris smiled. "I'm not sure if you expected me to find you or not, but, frankly, I don't give a fuck." By this time, the demon had long retracted the bone blade back into her forearm, hopefully concealing the fact that she could use such an ability at all. It was always nice to save your biggest tricks for last, at least in this situation. The greatest magicians never revealed their grandest schemes, and neither would she. She wanted to play with this one a bit before she killed it, much like a child plays with their food.

"However, before you prove to be another minor irritation to anyone else here, I've got something to do." Minor? He was talking out of his ass, she could clearly see the wear and tear on the teenager no matter how much he tried to hide it. The ones that put up a fight were always the most fun. "Auf wiedersehen, au revoir, arrivederci, goodbye, whatever language you might want." In a comedic fashion, the clown like demon snapped back at this, "Greek." Before she could get another word in, Lazarus had cut her off. "I prefer these as a simpler alternative." Raising his guns, the boy finally came to an end of his speech. Nine out of ten, the demon thought to herself, not bad at all. "Game over." Oh, but it had just begun.

The Demon Hunter pulled down on his triggers and fired a barrage of bullets at the she-demon, three of which made contact, one into her right bicep which she quickly picked out using her sharp teeth in a rather disgusting manner. The second grazed her hair, giving it a slight cut on the right side. The third, finally, ironically landed in the same spot where one Reverend Smith happened to make a target earlier that month, reopening the age old shoulder wound. The clown demon had to ignore this wound, ducking down to avoid any further damage. Okay, so he was tough, but not tough enough. With a snarl, the demon cried out in English, "Don't get so cocky!" With that, something strange began to happen to her petite body. Something nobody could've expected at that point.

Her muscles began to tear out of her skin, becoming far larger than they were before as her bone structure itself grew taller and more reinforced. Great horns grew from her skull as it itself changed into a more demonic shape. Brilliant orange feathers grew from the demon's now pale grey skin. She had finally activated her apparatus, taking the form of a Taurus Demon who she had the pleasure of feeding on earlier that month. A wicked whip like tail grew out last, followed by two shoddy axes appearing from nothing but flames in the monster's massive clawed hands. The beast stood fifteen feet tall and barely fit in the narrow hall of the fun house. Any bullets fired at this monster would hit, but do little to nothing, most of them embedding in the ox creature's thick skin before piercing any flesh.

No longer speaking any words, Eris used the demon's vocal chords (or whatever they were, they couldn't be used to typical speak as one would imagine) to make a distorted sound that sounded only similar to her laughter in other forms. Scuffing her right hoof against the gritty floor, the large demon was suddenly off to a running start before coming to a full charge. The hallway was particularly long before turning into another two, and narrow, so the dmeon thought her odds of impaling the teenager on one of her great horns would be fairly easy to achieve given the situation.

A grisly fate, and perhaps not the one she was looking for, the jester half-hearted hoped that he would somehow figure out a way to avoid this attack, either through a feat of speed or otherwise. this whole ordeal truly would've been a waste of time if it was finished this quickly, after all. Upon slamming into the far most wall, she would immediately change back into her standard demon form, not wishing to be stuck in the wall for too long, but would first swipe at the Demon Hunter with one of her powerful axes if he lived on, hoping to at least scratch this guy as he ran off or counterattacked. Then again, there was no rush. This battle should be drawn out.

The show had just begun, after all.

[Lazarus Carter]

"Don't get so cocky!"

With that, she unleashed a snarl unfitting for her petite form as the Hunter rose his guns and released the lead-laden barrage. Between the echoing acoustics that only further increased the dazzling effects of his synaesthesia, and the light the muzzle flash created both naturally and spiritually through that sonic disorder his eyes carried, all the Hunter could do was continue to simply pull the trigger, pumping round after round after round into what he could only hope, somewhere in the midst of it, was Eris' lifeless corpse, suspended only still by the continual force of rounds slamming into her over and over.

The sound of some sort of softened impact filled his ears between it all; though the cacophony was difficult to distinguish between, and though he was, for all intents and purposes, blinded by the lights and sounds, he could hear it, lurking within. It was something like a squelch and a sickly crunch combined, over and over, with a latency of nanoseconds after each shot was fired. And it was only when the two guns made the empty click sequentially that he lowered them and opened his eyes once more, forty-six rounds exhausted into the other end of the corridor, and the wisps of off-white gunsmoke cleared, that, through his dazzled plane of vision, he caught sight of what had occurred.

No longer did Eris stand there; and she was not perforated with rounds nor any skewer wounds whatsoever. No; in the midst of it all there stood something, something that was apparently now the source of all the squelching and the crunching, something she had not been, but something she had become. Cramped here with the wide shoulders of her presumably newly-assumed form, a good fifteen feet tall, almost filling the hall of mirrors corridor completely, lumbering and snorting out jets of hot air between wide-set snout-like nostrils with each huff. Dead eyes of a single tone of colour; horns set wide and wickedly sharp upon her head; and in each massive, furred hand she clutched an axe-like scythe.

Something deep and grainy almost similar to a laugh came out accompanied by another pair of steam-like nasal jets. What had once been Eris the Megabitch could truly now be called Eris the Terrible. Or Eris the Hairy. Lazarus was beginning to think he'd underestimated her - the minor perforations in the minotaur-style Demon's thick skin that she'd assumed seemed not to dissuade it in the slightest as it scuffed its hoof against the floor. "Well, that's new." The redhead found only the time to make a single snide remark before it occurred to him that he was seconds away from becoming skewered, and that he was now facing off against a physically imposing tower of a beast - organic or not - panting and with a pair of empty Nomads.

The charge was swift, but it was lumbering; and the movements leading up to it had given the Demon Hunter time to preempt an escape plan, even if it was thought out somewhat badly. As the thing passed by, Lazarus threw himself down into the adjoining corridor, watching its horns rear as the great bipedal bull of a creature slammed itself into the wall; but there it did not falter, instead turning and bringing down its axe in an attempt to meet the human's torso; for in his "escape", the redhead had not thought to balance himself, instead only throwing himself along the floor a few feet. With a comedic yelp, the American jerked himself backwards, and the axeblade split the ground between his legs, barely four inches away from his testicles, with a resounding thwunk.

Once more Lazarus made a brief and now thoroughly perturbed gaze meeting the horrific, lumbering titan's once more, a look of pure horror set upon his face. Silence.

Scrabbling upwards, another swipe came down as the creature that had been Eris deigned to leave the axe-scythe embedded in the floor of the House of Mirrors, instead utilising its other hand to attack. The blade came down in a sweeping arc - and this one was too fast for Lazarus to avoid, though luckily this time it wasn't aimed at his groin, but instead a sweep over his chest. His torso - and, thankfully, most of his vital organs - the blade had missed, but it drew a shallow gash with just the edge of the blade through his jacket and into the comparatively tender and bloody flesh of his arm, spattering blood over the opposite wall as the arc came full circle and the American took a sharp intake of breath in response.

It was moments before those same crackling sounds began to echo through the funhouse once more; the bone and flesh of Eris the Megabitch began to reform as the Sarcastic gingerly checked his thankfully light "war wound". Once he realised that his pain proved no imminent danger, instead, he shed the white bomber and cast it aside, holstering the pistols, gritting his teeth and furrowing his brow as those crimson eyes narrowed to barely slits with the seething aura of determination simply exuding from his body, his soul, his very essence.

For the moment that he saw the harlequin's face reformed to that simplistic cheeky grin once more, he lashed out; though not with the empty guns, and not this time either with the pistol. For the stench of his own blood mingling with the cordite in the air and the feel of sweat on his brow had drawn something out of Lazarus once more. It was not only the Echo Trigger that lurked inside him. That had been evoked from weeks of training, days upon days of walking in Inferis. No; now - the Hunter felt something new, something fresh, something bloody and raw drawn from nowhere out of his own sheer anger begin to materialise, bubble, and surface within.

[ALTER BATTLE THEME]

And he just let it all come out.

"SONIC..."

He rose his foot for lack of knowing what else to do; it was internal, it was innate, as if it was a genealogical function he'd been born with having. It was intrinsic. It was instinctive. It had belonged with him all along. It wasn't something he'd learnt; it was something he'd known. All Lazarus Carter had to do was just... wake it up. He rose his foot for what felt like an eternity; and the moment that flash, that crazy grin met his plane of vision once more, he met it with one of true conviction, with a vindictive smirk hidden somewhere beneath it...

"...BOOM!"

...and then he slammed his foot right back fucking down.

When it met the ground they were barely six feet apart. And whilst he'd never seen it before, never unleashed it, it was almost as if he was confident, even arrogant, or perhaps proud of what this unknown talent would yield, even in his state of blissful ignorance. But it was truly a sight to behold; as it had beneath the bull Eris' steps, the ground trembled and quaked, and over a split-second it went from unwavering to rippling over such a small area, the vibrations evident from the high-pitched whine that rose in frequency over moments, before equalising itself with a great, powerful, clap. A cancellation as the sheer force of the foot landing with all that imbued vibratory power channeled through it, a conduit for the charging energy as with all that thrumming released a dull, purple light, gathered first around Lazarus' foot, and then transferred into the floor, before finally through to where Eris was standing.

And it all met its finality, its climax, with... that clap, that thrum, that peak, that kick, that drop... that sonic boom.

[Alice the Chopper]

The laughing demon did what she did best as she saw the bloody wound she had created. She looked back down at her own clothing to see that it also obtained some nice red stains from her bullet wounds that only grew deeper and larger as she continued to move so frantically. Eris didn't care. It wasn't finished yet, the jester raised her right arm as if she was going to use it as a shield or something. That wasn't exactly the plan, of course. With a wide sneer, Eris began to speak, but was sharply cut off before the first word even left her mouth.

"SONIC..."

The mockingbird's expression changed into one of disgruntled confusion, not exactly knowing what was going on. The teenager lifted his foot which added to the demon's confusion. Must've been some sort of crazy fighting stance or something, or at least that's what she thought at the time. She took the opportunity to gain some ground on the Demon Hunter, inching closer with a simple walk. It was the perfect chance to get the jump on him while he was doing his silly taunts.

"...BOOM!"

Lazarus' foot came down on upon the concrete ground making a noise so loud it sounded like he fucking cracked it with his mere foot. Following this slam not even seconds after came a wave of colored energy, more condensed than the ones sang from the megaphone or his firearms. It must've been a new ability all together. And Eris was only but three feet away from him. "Fuck." Was the only word that got to escape the changeling's mouth.

Discordia's small body was blown back by the shockwave of personified sound. It must've been thrown at least twenty feet before hitting a wall, shattering yet another mirror. The sounds of broken glass and cracking bones could be heard as the demon slowly got to her heeled feet. She was covered in far more blood than she just was a few minutes ago. Broken reflective shards stuck in the shapeshifter's body, ripping her strands of colorful thread that she liked to call "clothing". She was only a few strands away from displaying demonic boobage, as bloody as it would be in her current condition.

Through heavy and spaced apart breaths, the Terrible finally spoke, "Nice trick, but I've seen better!" Once again, her pride shined through in a display of arrogance. Despite the heavy wounds and injuries that troubled even her regeneration factor, the demon still thought she could win. As for every trick was hidden behind another trick yet, at least in a good magician's show. "I'm gonna knock your head sideways!"

With that proclamation, the shapeshifter cracked her knuckles one at a time, before extending four sharp spikes out of each of them. She had essentially turned her hands into a pair of spiked brass knuckles, but perhaps deadly yet. Using every last bit of soul energy she had, the chaotic demon ran at Lazarus at a supernatural pace enhanced by her demonic muscles. She eventually began to cartwheel, increasing her velocity furthermore, before coming to a stop inches away from the teenager's head.

Using the same enhanced muscles she just used to run, Eris would bring back her right fist and attempt to swing fast and hard square in the Demon Hunter's face, which would without a doubt cause considerable and possibly even fatal damage with the extra reinforcement she added to her knuckles. Little did she notice, or maybe she did, this attempt left her torso fairly unguarded as her other hand was behind her to give the right fist more force.

[Lazarus Carter]

The aftereffects of his newfound ability were, to say the least, vindictively pleasing. Eris' body was thrown against a wall like a ragdoll, and the shattered mirrors seemed to act as a sort of improvised shrapnel, some of the smaller shards managing to find their way into her clothes. "That..." He watched as the Demon pulled herself up, the curvature on his face trembling. "...was..." The quivering lips pulled themselves then into a defiant grin. "...awesome."

However, Eris the Megabitch seemed not to think so, raising back up and uttering a high-pitched, manic comment in his general direction. "Nice trick, but I've seen better!" Well, shit, that wasn't going to get him down. Laz might have been emotional, but not that bad. But if she was going for the business of tricks... slowly, he lowered the left, empty Nomad to his waist, dropping it until it vanished only into a gentle flash, leaving him with just the right.

"Y'know, I wouldn't be inclined to think so," The sarcastic teen retorted, doing what he did best above shooting, listening, shouting, making music, stomping... just plain old conversation. All he had to do was keep Eris occupied, keep her from leaping at him just yet - of course, there was an impending counter-attack. Laz would almost be disappointed if there wasn't. "Cause, thus far, the stuff you've pulled out of your ass is the same-old, same-old, boring evil mook shit." Aside from the big bull thing. That was kind of cool, he had to admit.

All the while, his hands had been behind his back, the free one having fetched a magazine from the lower bands of the bandoliers across his open chest, the fresh wound from the scythes Eris had been in possession of still bleeding profusely. "So, come on, Eris, baby," Flashing a determined, competitive, taunting smile, he gently, ever so gently slid the fresh magazine in with a cold, slow, quiet click. "Show me something mildly interesting."

It seemed she was inclined to do oblige him. "I'm gonna knock your head sideways!" One by one, she moved one hand to a knuckle of the opposite, and sequentially began cracking the air from them; or so he presumed, with a louder, sickly, crunch resonating every time she so much as pounded her hands. This was it; he didn't want to know what the preparation was for - but hopefully, if this last plan worked - he wouldn't have to. Timing was everything - the sound of her cracking her knuckles had to coincide perfectly - and as she did so with the third knuckle of the first hand, he drew back the slide, one-handed, and let the now-free hand return to his side, still keeping the Nomad concealed behind his back.

It was when she moved onto her second hand that his thumb eased down the hammer - and then, right then, Lazarus Carter let slip the tiniest of smirks. It was so minuscule, so microscopic, infact, that it could have been instead mistaken by a facial expert, even close, as a twitch - but it was there. It was release. Because, now, he had the element of surprise. He had the upper hand. The knuckles began to swell and pulsate momentarily before each saw a single, tapered, spike of bone emerge from them, splitting the skin with a bloody trickle emerging. The pain and exertion placed on her body was totally clear - but, if anything, the depraved bitch of a Demon seemed to be enjoying it. And when the process was complete, and she had two hands' worth of what were essentially improvised knuckledusters, she collected every last ounce of energy remaining and dove upon him, fists raised high.

"Like I said," With that, he unsheathed the pistol as she moved into her charge. "Game over." CRACK. The first round stopped her dead in her tracks, knocking her back with the sheer force of the eleven millimetre copper-jacketed round. It appeared that, though in her other form, she could easily shake off his bullets as if it were nothing but a light dusting of hail, here, the flesh of her true, monstrous, hideous form was somewhat less defensible.

But the Demon still stood tall, proud in her harlequin visage; and the ever-present adage of the zombie survivalist, as well as the Demon Hunter, rung true in his head - the rule of the double-tap. At first, he lowered his sights upon her head - but the flesh of her stomach was already torn, and the blood was already shed. To execute her in such a haphazard and inhumane manner would be to eliminate, to crush, to destroy that last speck of humanity that remained, and would only haunt him - this was the first humanoid Demon who had conversed with him, even if most of it had simply been a psychological taunt.

So he lowered the pistol back down to her stomach, where the first round had struck, and with not a faltering in his gaze or his pallor, pulled the trigger again. CRACK. The second squelch rang out louder as the bullet collided, and the Demon slumped to the ground, the soul energy intermingling with her blood as it began to form in a pool around her. Eris was dead. "You know, they say life's a bitch," Tilting his head, he let the gun fall from his hand and evaporate into an iridescent flash. "But death looks like a hell of a lot worse to me."

With a brief, almost mocking salute, he sighed. "I wish it coulda' been some other way, but you were a real crazy bitch." And with that, Lazarus turned, pivoted on his heel, stuffing his hands into his pockets, and began to leave the funhouse. He could tell; she had been the last presence nearby. It was nothing more of a hunch - he was fine, now, fine to leave, fine to return home, but he didn't exactly want to come back to Washington in a presumably locked hall of mirrors this early in the morning. That was just asking for it.

Instead, he emerged out into the Chasm proper; the vicious red sun was starting to rise in the sky, beckoning yet on the horizon, which, hopefully, meant it was morning, or some semblance of it, back home. With that, bloody, exhausted, and his business here complete, he cast one final look out over the battleground, filled with the plastic sheets that had once been the harlequin's subordinates, and shook his head with half a smile, happy that he could call this a chapter closed, an undead life ended, and his business here complete.

Then Lazarus Carter promptly opened up the fabric between the two worlds, as he had done so many times before, and, for all intents and purposes, outwardly disappeared.

[EXIT THREAD]

[Alice the Chopper]

The demon's boney fist was coming so close to the poor Demon hunter's face. It really was such a shame that he had to go out this way. Oh well, he gave a good fight while it lasted. Not even the good Reverend was able to pull off some of the tricks she saw today, and this body would certainly be the strongest one, at least mortal, that the doppelganger had faced yet. And that's saying something, after all, the chaotic demon had slayed well over thousands of demons and mortals in her many years of existence. She was a monster of violence, true to what many thought of demons, living up to almost all of the stereotypes.

A cold steel touched her bare stomach. What? Impossible, her knuckles were stuck in that fucker's face weren't they?! There was no way he could've made contact! With a pissed off, and confused look upon her face, Eris turned to her hand, only inches away from impaling the redhead's face. Impossible. Impossible. Impossible. "That's not funn-" The Mockingbird yelled out in an olden Greek language before feeling a sharp pain travel through her stomach and expanding through her body, before releasing another sharp pain from her back. Blood. Her blood, not his, no this simply wasn't right.

In a fury of rage, the prideful demon attempted to work through the pain and lash back out at the teenager and end him quickly with a last resort bite, bearing her powerful fangs. Before this operation could even be half completed, she felt another sharp pain work it's way through her internal organs, and this one she could not withstand. Blood drooled out of the demon's mouth with this shot, indicating that her stomach had definately been ruptured. The broken and stained body of the Terrible hit the ground like an expired sack of potatoes. The joke was up. Or at least it seemed to be.

"I wish it coulda' been some other way, but you were a real crazy bitch." The cocky teen said upon his exit, assuming the collapsed body was dead as dirt. A proper guess, really, as Eris was indeed playing dead on point. Her breathing was brought down to unnoticeable short breaths. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, the whole deal. good thing he didn't bother to check for a pulse, right? That would've been bad. Well, bad for Eris. This situation at hand happened to be in her favor, but perhaps not the Demon Hunter's.

The jester clad demon laid there in rest, allowing her body's natural regenerative systems to run their course. Soon the hole in her stomach would be no more, soon her cuts and gashes would seal up without the need of stitching or medical attention. The harlequin wouldn't lie, well maybe she would, but she knew, oh she knew. She was hurt. Badly at that, perhaps the most in a very long time.

Eris, with a painful convulsion, was finally able to let out another bout of laughter after a half hour of motionless laying. The joke was on Lazarus the Sarcastic.

["EXIT" THREAD]

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