A Fate Forged in Flame [Yuuko/Closed]

[Lazarus Carter]

10:36 AM
4TH JANUARY, 2012
I-495, WASHINGTON D.C.

"Her dress..." The murmur came in time to tappings against the steering column of a particularly beaten steering wheel of a beaten 1999 Vauxhall Astra that could be described only using words that one would not consider tasteful. "...deep red..." That said, the driver of the car didn't seem to mind, his grin as wide and white as ever, etched in permanence across his gentle, pale pallor. "...get her..." The music was coming up to its crescendo now. "...TO BED!" Inside the car, the redhead teen broke into a convulsion-like set of drummings and shakings in "time" to the music, apparently. The song dropped into a heavy and memorable guitar riff, and the Americanised tones of an alternative rock band.

If there's one thing that wasn't shitty about the Vauxhall Astra, it was the radio; but much unlike the driver's particular designated playlist, the traffic itself was nowhere near reaching its crescendo. He'd been stuck within the same one-hundred metre strip of tarmac for the past twenty minutes, and it was getting tiring; someone like the driver did not deal well with boredom, most typically aligned, in his life, with a sense of excitement being something of an inherent addiction within his personality.

He was only in Washington because of this damned family visit, anyway - and since he was in the area, he figured he'd call up an old flame, catch up, and, hey, you know, maybe even see if they could have a... "rerun" of old times. Would probably break the stochastic and boring repetition that these usual family visits tended to bring. Turning down the music, it was this, coupled with his insatiable boredom, that lead the man to pull down the panel-mirror in front of him on the driver's seat.

Perfectly consistent dyed sharp crimson hair to match his "deformed" red gaze, on this particular day, the driver's pallor was fairly standard. He bore his typically black bomber, orange lining and all, some trademark cargo pants and a pair of regular sneakers, laced up tight around his feet. It was, however, only a moment before he noticed a speck of barbecue sauce lingering at the corner of his mouth, muttering a curse under his breath and licking the tip of his finger to dab it off. "Fucking burger..." He murmured. That was the bottom line, every time, wasn't it? DELICIOUS FOOD COMES AT A PRICE.

With that done, he set his gaze on the one mirrored in the reflective screen for a moment, and hummed gently in the static traffic lane. Lazarus Carter... He thought. You are Lazarus Carter. Why did that matter? Why did it ever matter? It was just some hypocritical pseudo-motivational bullshit he let echo in the halls of that mind of his that he let him get away with; but for some reason, identity had always been a prominent part of the individual's life. Lazarus Carter. Son of Mariah and Isaiah. Brother of Kurt, Irving, and Jennifer. Athletic progeny of the Carter family. Adopted, but still.

Halfway through considering the nature and origin of his actual bloodline, Lazarus had failed to notice that traffic had begun to move, the eighteen-wheeler truck in front of him lurching forwards and its hydraulics hissing as, miraculously, things began to take a turn for the better. Realising he was still in the middle of a lane where he should have been doing at least sixty, the redhead frantically jammed his foot down onto the accelerator - however, forgetting that he'd been tweaking the steering column, and causing the car to veer off into the right at a sharp angle, evoking a sea of irregular car horns resounding from the vehicles he was cutting in front of, as he tried to wrest control of the Vauxhall. But it was too late. The concrete barrier of the highway was coming up quickly, as traffic cones rolled over the hood of his car and flew off from either side like thumping striped orange confetti. He only had time to do one thing before he made contact.

Scream.

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

[Yuuko Koizumi]

"God damn it... at least I don't have work today," Yuuko hissed to herself as she watched the long line of cars, all in the same position she was. They all needed to be somewhere, and were trapped in this damned traffic jam. Three cars ahead, she saw some moron flailing around in his car. It was even shaking a little. Yuuko could only wonder what kind of an idiot he was. Yuuko watched him for a source of amusement, silently trying to figure out what the hell he was even doing. Maybe he was having some sort of a seizure...? Or perhaps it was what he considered "dancing". Only god knows what the hell that boy was doing.

Her eyes drifted away from the red-haired boy for a moment, only to see a semi-truck started to sputter and move ahead. The young man she had dubbed as "that idiot" was still goofing off. People began honking their horns in frustration. She saw a few middle fingers fly up as well. Yuuko found her own temper was starting to get testy as she saw other cars able to get out of the traffic jam, home free. Suddenly, she saw movement in his car. Her head quickly snapped over to see that... he was going in the wrong direction. His vehicle lurched to the right and drove right into a neat line of neon orange traffic cons. His car slammed right into the curb. People just drove by. Nobody was stopping. Wasn't anyone going to do something...?

"Shit," Yuuko muttered under her breath as she turned out of the line of traffic and parked over by the curb. The door of her car swung open as her creamy white leg stretched out to touch the ground. Quickly, Yuuko slammed the door shut and ran to the car. "Hey! Are you alright?" Yuuko hollered when she reached the window. To her surprise, there wasn't a soul in there. The car was still running, and there were McDonald's wrappers strewn across the backseat.

"What the..." Suddenly it clicked. He was a hunter! He had just crossed through a tear, into Inferis! But why would the idiot do something so idiotic, at such a random time? Especially in the middle of traffic. Could it be possible that someone as old as he seemed to be would have their first crossing at this age? Yuuko didn't know. She still didn't understand much about when people first cross into tears, but she knew it usually happened when they're young.
Yuuko darted back to her car, popped open the trunk, and took out her lifeline. Her sword. It was neatly wrapped up in it's cloth case still. She carefully pulled it out, but made sure to do it in secrecy so she didn't scare someone into thinking she was some psycho killer about to go on a rampage. "Alright then, time to save this loser's ass..."

Yuuko crossed into Inferis using the powers she acquired the day she became a Demon Hunter. Her irises turned bright red, the pupils became slits, and her signature outfit appeared on her body. A black button up lined with red, and a red skirt lined with black. Black long socks, and dark brown shoes. Last but not least, the chain. It clinked softly when it materialized on her body. Power, she could feel it surging through her entire being. She felt stronger, mightier than she felt on Earth. Inferis appeared before her eyes. The sky was a deep shade of deadly red, with ominous black clouds casting overhead. She stood on a broken and dilapidated highway, at the end of which was a huge canyon. Buildings all around were ruins. And far far away, you could see the ginormous chasm that stood in the center of it all.

After gazing about herself for a moment, Yuuko's attention was directed towards the young man who had had the misfortune of coming into Inferis so suddenly and at such a bad time. He seemed like he was about to piss himself out of plain fear and shock. "You. Come with me, if you don't want to get killed," she ordered with that authoritative voice of hers.

[Lazarus Carter]

"-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

The natural anatomical response to fear or anticipation of an impact the likes of which Lazarus was almost certain he was about to experience is, nine times out of ten, a tension of the body - as a brace for any shock to try and dampen it - an outstretching of the arms, and above all else in this circumstance and context, a forceful closing of the eyes. Pale lids slammed shut over crimson irises and, frozen in shock, Laz gripped tightly to the steering wheel and prayed to god that the airbag would kick in before a stray cinderblock flattened his skull.

THUMP.

...

Well, that was certainly an impact, but not the sort he'd been expecting. Epinephrine coursing through his blood like a toxin, he registered the force he'd felt on his body - why was it coming from below, instead of from in front of him? Why was there no usual sound of traffic and the screams of bystanders as they watched him pry himself free of shattered glass and the expanded airbag? Why was it replaced with a low, eerie whistling? Why couldn't he feel some tightening compression and sharp pain in his sides as his ribs were riddled with the vibrations emitted from the crash?

And why the fuck couldn't he feel the steering wheel?

Slowly, his eyelids lurched open, and his hands fell down to his knees. Exhaustion. That was what he felt furrowing his every muscle, bone, ligament, tendon... every inch of sinew or pound of flesh was truly exhausted. His blood burnt like boiling battery acid. His lungs heaved like they were burning to ash beneath his ribcage. And had he been feeling somewhat more active, the sights in front of him might have made him display some visible signs of surprise. But in his current state, pumped chock-full of adrenaline but feeling as if his legs were made of raw spaghetti, he couldn't do anything but sigh, roll his eyes, shut his lids again, and resign to the whole thing being a hallucination.

At first he just saw a snapshot of the landscape. It was the same interstate. I-495, identical in curvature and shape; but the shoulder was crumbled away in front of him, the concrete cracked and split at uneven junctures. The tarmac was darkened, the painted lines and borders of the road faded; and what had once been a sky of clear blue held a deep, bloody, crimson tint, brooding black clouds like thick smoke gathering above in a ghastly foreshadowing of a congregation. Hallucination, clearly. Had he ever been in Washington at all? Or was this just another trip in that club? He'd only ever tried acid once, and that was when someone had spiked his drink with it-

"You. Come with me, if you don't want to get killed," He expended as much effort as he felt like opening the very corner of his eyelid into a tiny slit. Thin furrows inside a sea of crimson - much like his eyes - and full black. His shaky gaze scanned her further down and saw what she clutched in her hand. One of those fancy Japanese swords. Kakunas or something? Lazarus didn't know to laugh in response or actually start fathoming all this as pseudo-reality.

"Don't want to go to school," He murmured. "Let me stay at home or something, I need to... adjust... sleeping... schedule..." With that, a snore began to echo from the corner of his mouth. Typical of Lazarus to christen his first journey into an alternate reality by falling asleep.

[Yuuko Koizumi]

Yuuko stared at the boy who had decided to take a nap. Was he seriously asleep?! Now, of all times?! God, if she wasn't here he'd be demon food for sure. He wouldn't last a second. By the sound of his loud snorings, Yuuko could tell that he wouldn't be awoken so easily. It looked like she'd have to take the difficult route with the idiot. With a huff, Yuuko stomped over to the young man and loomed over him.

Now that she was closer to him, she got a better look at his features. He had a very muscular build, bright red hair that obviously looked dyed, and a sort of handsome looking face. Yuuko wasn't much interested in what he looked like though. She just wanted the idiot to wake up.

"Get the hell up..." she barked first. No movement came from him. Well, she tried being nice. He wasn't awake. Yuuko decided to do it her way now. Her long and curvy leg went down to his short ribs. Her foot pulled back, and then BAM! She planted it into his ribs, but made sure to control her strength. Yuuko was a lot stronger in Inferis, so if she wasn't careful she could break something without meaning to.

"Get up now unless you want me to throw you into the Chasm."

A second kick was given for good measure before she put her foot back down. Yuuko walked back over to where his head was and stood next to it again. "We need to leave before demons start to gather. They like to pick on new and confused Demon Hunters," She informed as she watched him catch his breath. Her firm kick to the short ribs didn't break anything, but enough to knock a bit of wind out of him. "Hurry up, I don't have all day."

[Lazarus Carter]

"Get the hell up..." The impact to Lazarus' ribs sent him reeling and grunting in pain, hands gingerly rushing to the wounds. He keeled over away from her and groaned; shit, there was something distinctively stronger than usual about that specific kick. For the first time, he actually opened his eyes, and let his mind awaken as a response to it all, glaring up at her as she moved in for a second kick. The redhead wasn't feeling particularly active at this stage, so it made fairly deft contact, in the same area. "Get up now unless you want me to throw you into the Chasm." Technicolour lights started flashing before semi-opened eyes.

"SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" He howled back. He was right in the middle of a really nice sleep. And in case she hadn't remembered, he'd just been in a car crash. Traumatic experience. Fuck. Some people. With that, for risk of being booted again, he scrambled to his feet and crouched against the concrete barrier of the ruined interstate, taking another look at his surroundings. The air was thick and warm, almost unbearably humid; but it was something that he was slowly acclimatising too. It was beginning to sink in that this was far too vivid even for a hallucination, by product of his mind; and that this was some warped version of reality. Perhaps it was one of those therapeutic methods. Maybe he'd been transported into the future somewhat. Fuck it. Whatever she was, when she kicked him, it hurt, and he wanted to avoid that.

Another quick gander at the environment revealed that, in the near-distance, there was a great split in the ground, a huge furrow, a canyon maybe half a mile deep, perhaps more, sloped edges and forged of great brown rock. Lazarus astutely guessed that this was the Chasm she'd been talking about. It seemed to go on for miles, carved in the very crust of the Earth itself. Beyond it, slightly further on, he could see something faded, piercing the sky and splitting the black, smog-like clouds that hung above. A tower? The shape was at best blurry, but it seemed almost... impossibly tall. Fuck, maybe not the Earth. Where the Hell were they?

"We need to leave before demons start to gather." Wait, what? Demons? Why was she talking about demons? Riiiight, this made sense now. This was some Bible-thumper's idea of a joke, dragging him into some hypnotic, "god-induced" therapy to try and make him openly welcome their religion. Everything was falling into place. "They like to pick on new and confused Demon Hunters,"

"Look, lady," Lazarus turned back from the concrete barrier, moving tenderly with the unnaturally sore patch in the side of his ribs from where she'd kicked him. That definitely smarted. Felt like it was bruising over already. "I don't know who you are, where you come from, or why you're carrying that around," He flicked his head towards the katana she was grasping. "But I'm not running off with any strangers, especially those who take to booting me in the ribs." It was only Isaiah and Mariah's upbringing that had kept him from swearing blindly at whoever this girl was.

It was for the first time that he begun to scan her properly; in all-black and with a sword she looked like something out of an action B-movie, but her face was impossibly young. Sharp red gaze and almost a full foot shorter than him, but she was kind of vicious, even in aura, and clearly wasn't fucking about with him. "Hurry up, I don't have all day." There it was again! He'd caught it, clearer, this time. Those lights, the technicolour ones. They formed in orbs, clinging to the shape and size of her lips as they pursed, closed, shut, and quivered. With every movement, no matter how large or small, they ran up and down along a gradient scale of colour, glowing brightly and trilling ever-so-gently.

"How are you doing that?!" He looked at her, startled, forgetting whatever logic was telling him that continuing to converse with this girl was a bad idea. Lazarus was clearly too tired or shocked to as of yet register that this was reality, and instead focused on what he could and couldn't see. The lights, the orbs that clung to her lips with every syllable, as if they were molded to them, personally fitted. Her voice... it was... so... stern. So impossibly blue. Dark blue. The redhead wasn't sure how sound could be blue, but the lights... and just... everything fell into place.

Noticing it now for the first time, the realisation came; it was like looking back and revisiting an old habit, something he'd never truly understood: but this wasn't something he was used to. Ever since he'd woken up, everything had felt... so utterly... redefined, but in an intrinsically subtle way. Everything he looked at and heard and felt and saw and conceived... was... somewhere on the colour spectrum. For instance, this current situation they found themselves in? It was indescribably and inexplicably orange. "With the lips? And the... lights?!"

He paused for a moment. Okay, perhaps this was a bit too far. "...am I crazy?"

[Yuuko Koizumi]

"How are you doing that?!" The idiot seemed rather startled whenever she talked. Yuuko knew she had a firm voice, but nobody had ever seemed this scared whenever she spoke. A thin black eyebrow was raised in curiosity. "Doing wha-" "With the lips? And the... lights?!" Yuuko glanced around, wondering if something was making flashing lights somewhere. As expected, she found nothing. Her temperament was being tested as he continued freaking out about the invisible lights. Since the "lights" seemed to be something new to him, perhaps it was part of his Inferis abilities? That would be the most likely explanation, so Yuuko would just have to assume that for now.

"...am I crazy?" Yuuko wasn't sure if he was asking her or himself. Yuuko normally would have said yes, since he was a little on the weird side. But no, she knew it would be better to give him straight answers. He'd need all the help he could get from here on out, if he was to be a Demon Hunter.

"No. We are in Inferis. Most people refer to it as Hell. It is the domain of the demons. When humans enter Inferis, they change a little. Everyone changes in their own unique ways. You can see strange lights for whatever reason, so I guess that is your change. Through your heritage, you have gained the ability to enter Inferis. You've also received incredible powers that no normal human can ever even dream of having. You're a Demon Hunter, as am I."

Yuuko knew that her speech was long winded, and a little hard to understand or believe. But that's all she really could do as in terms for an explanation. Hopefully he would finish his little freakout later so Yuuko could send him on his way, and she could go home. This was her day off, damn it. Yuuko wanted to enjoy it, not be stuck explaining things to the idiot. Then again, if she didn't at least explain SOME things he'd probably get killed. He may be physically fit, but that didn't mean Yuuko thought he didn't look like much. Based on his reactions so far, he wouldn't last five seconds in his first fight with a demon unless Yuuko gave him a hand. "Can we go now? Your yelling is going to attract something to our location."

[Lazarus Carter]

"No. We are in Inferis. Most people refer to it as Hell." Lazarus scratched his head and quickly looked from side to side, peering dumbly upwards up at the sky, nodding gently. The reddish tint seemed more than fitting. "When humans enter Inferis, they change a little." Slowly, he reached back down from his head, and noticed in his periphery, for the first time since this whole debacle had begun, that his typically-black bomber jacket - and slacks, too - had changed to an almost unnaturally pure white.

Laz grimaced. He didn't like white clothing, and from traumatic experiences in the past with various sauces he had been instructed - no, drilled - to not wear it unless he was going to be eating insanely meticulously. And that almost never happened; thus, no white. "You can see strange lights for whatever reason, so I guess that is your change." With that, he stared back at the girl, crimson eyes to match his own, and sighed. Her lips were still glistening, the vibrant light changing with every syllable, fluctuating to the sound, dynamic, tone, timbre... every attribute of the speech, no matter how noticeable or evident it was, seemed to coincide almost perfectly with the gradient scale of colour that the tint slid up and down upon. "Through your heritage, you have gained the ability to enter Inferis." The redhead knew he was adopted, but that was a bit of a stretch.

This was still very clearly a hallucination. But a vivid one - seriously, whatever shit he'd been hit with, it was potent enough to make what was obviously a dream seem real. The buffeting of the wind as it struck his face over and over. The unnatural warmth of it. The unsettling vibrations emanating from beneath his feet from cars that didn't dare lay foot on the split tarmac. "You've also received incredible powers that no normal human can ever even dream of having." Inferis... powers?

This seemed all too convenient to be true. Laz told himself over and over that this was a figment of his eternally-wild imagination, everything gyrating in his head. He was probably stuck in some psych ward, and she was his nurse. Young as she was. Maybe she'd graduated early from training, or something? But the way she spoke, with such certainty, regarding the environment... interacting with it... the human brain was powerful, but never this straight-forward. And in any hallucination there were still signs to which one could at least cling to a hope of reality. Here?

There was no end in sight.

Panic welled up in the pit of Lazarus' stomach. "You're a Demon Hunter, as am I.". Demon... Hunter? He didn't want to hunt Demons. Fuck, he had no problems with them. Provided Demons left him alone, he'd leave them alone. Wasn't that enough!? Couldn't he just go about his business without something happening?! Fuck, it was always him. EVERY time.

His knees didn't buckle. He didn't fall to the floor or slump on the railing another time. As was to be expected, he didn't even falter in the slightest. But deep inside those crimson pools, something clicked. Something spun, boiled, and bubbled. The facts aligned and he finally processed them all. This wasn't insanity. That was just the safety net he'd looked to for a logical explanation. And that was, for once, the scary thing. Lazarus Carter wasn't crazy. But he was still stuck in another dimension.

He looked out over the cityscape, the ruined, crumbling buildings, and something pounded in his heart, panging with some form of demented hysteria. This was... was this... what was to come? An eminent foreshadowing of some apocalypse in the next decade? Even that seemed easier to stomach than... well, Hell on Earth. He hadn't quite... just... really? "Can we go now? Your yelling is going to attract something to our location." He didn't understand. Why couldn't he understand?

Everything had been spun upside down. Everything he'd known and everything he knew, turned on its head. Logic was completely shattered, that fragile, teetering glass sphere sitting on the edge of his mind hadn't so much fallen off the shelf as been completely obliterated, stamped down into tiny little transparent-white particles. It wasn't that it was too difficult to understand: his mind was just not outfitted to understand it. Being raised in an athiest family, not only had he been denied any existence of God and Heaven, in a less-than-nihilistic way, but any existence of Satan and Hell. Did this mean... did this mean that another afterlife existed? Had he been wrong? "Can we go now? Your yelling is going to attract something to our location."

The thundering conclusion came down like a judge's gavel and the sharp left hook of realism made contact with the jaw of his mind. He swayed and faltered for just a minute, tripping - now the physicalities of it came into it all - and slumping into the hard shoulder, cracked into faded, rubble-like mounds collected at the side of the interstate. "J-just... a moment." He murmured, reaching for his head. It felt like it was about to split and burst open. Everything he knew had just been splintered and laid out in front of him as complete fact - and the evidence was before his eyes. It wasn't that it was an absolute conclusion - just that the amount of proof required to be seen as overkill for smashing his prior, nineteen-year conception of things had just engulfed him, pulled him into the amorphous congregation and like some deformed, shadowy boa constrictor, squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until finally it all just crumbled.

But that wasn't the problem. Hell existed. For now, at least. "Inferis" was real. And this girl was his only ally. The logistics of it could wait; the hairs on the back of Lazarus' spine were beginning to stand up. This place was dangerous, and he was starting to feel like he'd outlived even just a momentary stay. He took a long, deep draw of breath, and turned back to Yuuko, trying to brave a smile. "R-right. Sorry, just a bit to stomach." Evidently. "Where do we go now? Can we get out of here?"

The logistics of it could wait.

[Yuuko Koizumi]

"R-right. Sorry, just a bit to stomach. Where do we go now? Can we get out of here?" Yuuko nodded and put her blade away in it's holster, feeling as if they're safe for now. Appearing out of thread with a sword in hand wouldn't be a good deal if someone was close, so it was best to put it back. Yuuko glanced around for a moment, looking at the crumbled mess that lay before them. It was a bit dark because of the lack of a shining sun and the clouds didn't help much either. That wasn't a problem for Yuuko though. She could see in fairly dark places while in Inferis, mostly due to her slit pupils. Yuuko could be nocturnal if she wanted to, but preferred her life in the daylight and on Earth. She wouldn't trade it that easily, just because she could see in the dark.

Sometimes though, her eyes became a bit of a problem when she's out hunting. Other Demon Hunters see them, and get a little freaked out. Some even try to attack her, thinking that she herself is a demon. Thankfully, the boy didn't even seem to notice or care at the moment. Probably because he was confused and disorientated, which was understandable. Yuuko remembered her first time in Inferis as if it was just yesterday. At the time, Yuuko was a tween of thirteen. All that mattered to her was friends, fitting in, clothes, and having fun. All things that seemed trivial and frivolous to Yuuko now. The experience scarred her for life, as it did with most (normal) people. It also changed her life aspirations completely. Yuuko stopped hanging out with friends. She stopped going to parties and sleepovers. Yuuko no longer CARED. She tried, Yuuko tried so hard to care for the sake of the people around her. But no matter what she did, none of that mattered anymore. Yuuko realized she had changed, and that it was better to accept this. Of course, that happy face was kept slapped on for her friends. Only when she killed the horrid creatures did she ever get to be herself. Hopefully for the young man, he wouldn't have to share her lonely fate. He looked like a tough one, even though he was a bit of a baby too. He could probably handle it better than she had.

"Alright then.. I'll get us out." Yuuko tried to bring them back to the spot of the crash with her mind. To no avail, it seemed, for it simply would not let her through. "The hell.. why isn't it..." Yuuko grumbled and kept trying. And each try, nothing happened. Her temper flared for a moment and she grit her teeth in frustration. "Damn it, let me go back!" She barked, kicking at the ground a little to physically show how mad she was getting. It didn't make sense! The only reason she wouldn't be able to go back, if there was a demon in the area. Yuuko hadn't seen one earlier... Then it clicked. In a low and grave tone, she ordered the young man over. "Get behind me. Now."

[Lazarus Carter]

"Alright then.. I'll get us out." She could... do that? Just leave on a whim? With a grip on his shoulder and a look of grit determination on her face, awkwardly, Laz scanned his surroundings once more and scratched the back of his head. Huh. Nothing was happening. And, y'know, this place, for all she seemed apprehensive of it, wasn't that bad. A bit odd, sure; but not as horrifying as she made it out to be. "The hell.. why isn't it..."

"Why isn't what...?" Lazarus murmured, puzzled and completely out of the loop. He surveyed the area again. What was she talking about? All this enigmatic shit wasn't really helpful; and with another apprehensive look, between those crimson irises, he finally noted the pair of almost typically villain-esque feline-shaped slit irises. What... was this? What was going on? Did she turn half-cat when she came into this place, or something?

"Damn it, let me go back!" She stomped her foot and the redhead arched an eyebrow. For a moment, he opened his mouth and considered making a temper-related remark, but both the churning of his stomach and the welt on his side from where she'd booted him made him stop and simply scowl. What the fuck was she doing, though? This seemed completely stupid.

Then something changed in her eyes. They narrowed, became impossibly small, and she looked past him, past it all, and off into the distance. "Get behind me. Now."

"Uh, sure..." He replied, still fairly vexed, shrugging and amiably walking over. He was still a little shaken, and his body was fucking exhausted, but if this was all part of the way that he was gonna get back home, hey, he didn't mind taking orders from her. Even if she did still look like a kid. However, as if on cue, at that exact moment, a faint chittering began to rise from beneath them. It was unlike the guttural and primal chatter of any avian whatsoever, no eagle, or no falcon beneath them; it was grotesque, even so much as audibly, and rose up from beneath them, welling and beginning to echo eerily around them.

Every last free hair on Lazarus' neck and back stood up straight and he felt as if he'd shrunk completely as a cold wave washed over him. "W-what-" Before he could complete the pointless query, from below, the chattering, unnatural cracking drowned out his voice, and from below, over the edge of the hard shoulder, upwards flew three identical wingless avian creatures fashioned of wood and bone.

Immediately, as is to be expected, Lazarus began howling at the top of his voice, scrambling backwards. NOW he was scared. "WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND FUCKING RIGHTEOUS IN THE WORLD AAARE THEEEEY!?" In response, the Demons squawked and hissed in his general direction, bearing the metallic sickles on their wooden "hackles", which in turn were attached to the rest of its body by rusted, gyrating - and squeaking nails. The creatures began to make slashing gestures with their blades.

((You can entertain yourself with two of them, but at the very least leave one for Laz please. :3 Oh, and click the skyblue text. It's a picture of the Demons.))

[Yuuko Koizumi]

Yuuko gripped her sword tighter as the grotesque lesser demons appeared before them. They didn't seem to like the idiot very much, since he was screaming up a storm right behind her. She squinted and stepped towards them with her sword, sizing them up all the while. Two would be easy enough to handle, but she knew that the third one might be a bit of a problem. Well, maybe the idiot would be able to serve as a distraction while she worked on the first two. He just better be able to run fast.

Her eyes darted from the bones to the sickles. It seemed this would be a bit of a blade on blade fight. At least they didn't seem to be all that strong in her standards. Their large amounts of sharp objects were a bit unsettling though. Yuuko could only hope she didn't get cut up too badly before this was over. Otherwise she'd have some explaining to do, and that never ended well.

"Fend for yourself right now, I'm going in," she muttered to the young man. She tossed the sheath of her sword aside so that it wouldn't burden her during battle, and darted in for the first attack. Yuuko moved quickly, and was light on her feet. Her speed was another advantage she had in Inferis, and made it easier to kill bigger and slower demons. With a low battle cry, she struck her sword against one of the wooden columns holding a sickle. Her hair blew around her face wildly when her sword had hit. Splinters flew everywhere when her sword made contact, and a huge chunk came flying off. The chunk sailed through the air for quite a few yards before landing and skidding across the ground. Her ability to manipulate wind currents was helpful in that right when attacking. She used it to change the wind currents around the sword when it moved, and increased the end force by a large percent; which is why most of her hits caused a great deal of damage.

The demon let out a shrill shriek at the loss of its "arm". It began flailing the other column at Yuuko, seeking revenge for the pain. Yuuko barely managed to duck in time as the sickle came at her. She could feel one of the spikes graze her cheek and split the flesh open as the column missed her head. Liquid red life immediately seeped out of the wound and ran down her cheek. Yuuko could feel the sting of the flesh wound and the warmth of the blood as it drizzled down her cheek, but found it to be an insignificant problem at this point. A little cut was far better than not having a head. Anyone could agree on that.

Yuuko began violently hacking at the demon, taking out large pieces at a time whenever she used her power. Splinters kept blowing all around, and a lot of it all over her clothes. Cleanliness wasn't important though. When you're fighting for your life, it never is. When she had first started fighting demons, she had been so picky about the state of her dress during and after a battle. Nowadays, Yuuko simply says "Fuck it" and cleans up when she can. With a final battle cry, Yuuko sliced right through the demon's torso. One last cry was heard from the demon as her sword rippled through its body and sliced it in half. The cry was short and cut off when death swept away with the demon's life. The corpse lay their, motionless now. All was not quiet though, for the other two demons were quite pissed to put it frankly.

Their unholy shrieks and squawks rang through the air as they swung their large sickles around angrily. Yuuko charged at them, sword raised high by the side of her face. One was quick enough to notice, and raised the large column holding the sickle. It swung it through the air, but not to slash at her. To Yuuko's bewilderment, doing this caused some of the nails and spikes lodged into the wooden column to shoot right out and straight for her. She only had time to duck her head and curse loudly as they rained down upon her. "Shit!" Yuuko let out a low grunt as she felt a terrible pain in one of her hands. The spikes and nails fell to the ground when they missed, but one had managed to stab her directly in the hand. When the sharp object rain seemed to stop, Yuuko hastily brought her hand to her face and gripped the bloodied nail. Her teeth dug into her lip before gripping onto the nail and yanking it out as swiftly as she could, to make the pain of pulling it out go by faster. Blood dribbled down her hands and fingers, dripping onto the floor as if it were rain falling from a rain cloud.

Shouting took her attention off her painful wound. Her head snapped up and she looked over towards the source. It seemed the demons had forgotten all about Yuuko, and had taken an interest in the idiot... With a large sigh, Yuuko adjusted her grip on her sword and watched them. "Keep running, and don't let them catch you. I'll give you a hand." With that being said, Yuuko began to follow right behind them.

[Lazarus Carter]

"Fend for yourself right now, I'm going in." Well that was great advice when he had nothing to fend for himself with. She was something of a shit guardian when push came to shove. The girl had arrived claiming that she "wanted to help him" and that they "needed to get out", but instead, these bony... things had just appeared before them. What sort of help was this?! What sort of place was this!?

After a drawn-out battle with the first of which Lazarus could not completely follow, with a shallow laceration across her cheek and blood draining down her face, the teenager, frozen and backed up against the hard shoulder of the interstate, began to panic. Their attentions had been diverted; whatever those grotesque bony masks they held upon those central, rotting wooden commons were, if they could have been faces, they would have had eyes boring straight into his torso. The pair of these things remaining had tired of the girl with the blade. They wanted fresh prey. "Keep running, and don't let them catch you. I'll give you a hand."

Lazarus didn't need to be told twice.

With that, he bolted straight into a sprint and launched himself down the tarmac of the interstate, his feet clapping against the softened black surface of the road. In the beginning, the creatures fashioned of bone and wood were simply startled at his actions, turning and chittering, cocking their "head"-columns in mechanical, unnatural manners, but after he'd covered some ground, they launched themselves forwards in short bursts, leaping up at speeds unlike most small land creatures on Earth that he knew of. These were... these were something different entirely.

He could hear them leaping from spot to spot behind him. Had Lazarus been in anyone's body but his own, he would have clearly succumbed to the speed of these avianesque creatures already and become prey to the deadly curvature of those arm-borne sickles. But Lazarus Carter had one trump card, even in Inferis, that he had forgotten about completely. And maybe even the girl had underestimated this. His speed.

Lazarus was renowned in real life for, a few years prior, having competed in regional and even semi-national sprinting contests. For this reason, the combination of his own body - still at a physical peak - with the adrenaline produced from this little pursuit had allowed him to thus far evade the creatures. But with each leap and pounce, followed by that horrible silent lapse and then the landing thump, the skeletal avians drew closer and closer, dogging at his heels; and after sprinting for what felt like an eternity, but had barely been half a minute, even the body of a learned runner was tiring. His veins were pumping not blood but acid, his lungs alight with self-sustained flame.

It was time to begin evasive maneuvres.

The wreckage of a burnt-out car shell in this alternate reality was coming up on his left, and at the last moment, Lazarus veered off towards it, pulling himself down into a momentous slide, and skidded on his hindquarters behind the remnants of the vehicle. The avians - as predicted - had nowhere near as much control over their leaps, and continued forward for a split-second, in their recovery and turning as they fumbled with their screeching claws against the tarmac and concrete, bought the redhead precious time.

But for what? His body was beginning to fail, and adrenaline had only prepared him for so much of a flight. He'd only thought up to getting cover; and as they scrabbled forwards, the bird-creatures were converging once again, pseudo-flapping and twirling those gyrating spiked columns, attached on a singular rusty nail as a joint. It was a horrific sight; and the more he looked at it the more he felt truly haunted. Lazarus knew he couldn't dwell on it, though. For now; all he had to do was just try to survive.

And in his delirium he turned to the car.

Panting like a wolf, the teenager fumbled with clammy hands, pale and glistening with sweat, into the charred remnants of the car. Why was this even here? In this alternate reality, this... Inferis, as she had called it, the interstate was empty. All save for this single chassis, this smouldering, age-old, rusted framework left here, empty... save for ripped leather rags and a pile of rubble. Just as he'd thought. No use-

As he retracted his hand, a sly grin slid back onto Lazarus' face. The bird monsters' claws were beating against the ground. They were barely moments away from shredding his face to bloody ribbons of flesh - and who knew what they'd do then. Perhaps they'd eat them - though it didn't seem like reanimated wood and bone had much of a dietary requirement. But inside, he had dwelt on something for just a moment. And the teenager's hand hovered back over to the pile of jagged rubble, a small mound, each block irregular, but about the size of his fist. It wasn't much, but perhaps it could keep the avians at bay whilst he scrabbled for another escape and returned to the girl? She had promised him she'd be right behind him, after all.

"Well, you little fucking bird-brains," Laz snarled in spite of the circumstances. The adrenaline was gripping him once more; and as he retracted the rocks from the upturned, burnt-out car, one in each hand, the grin slid onto his face once more and he knelt upwards, and finally pushed himself onto his feet. This was it. Do or die. Make or break. Either he set them off-course or he was dead. Possibly worse. "HOW ABOUT YOU HAVE A LITTLE TASTE OF THIS!?"

And in that one moment, that binary absolution, that polar evaluation of the situation in Lazarus Carter's mind changed something. Synapses fired and neurones shot forth like a breath exhaled from the Earth itself. There were only two choices here. Live or die. Survive or perish. Survive...

[INITIATE BATTLE THEME]

As he lifted the rocks backwards, his arms cranking with all his might, and images of old basketball games with his adoptive father flashed before his eyes, that changed rippled through in a great tidal wave from Lazarus' brain to his body. And from his body to his hands. And from his hands... to what was contained within. The rocks began behind the redhead's skull, and as they moved forwards, something flashed, a burst of light exuded from somewhere, and the teenager screwed those crimson orbs shut in preemptive instinct. His hands began to heat up and tingle, and he willed his eyelids back open, wrenching them upwards and lowering the rocks in a slower, gentler arc; for now he was not throwing them, and they were no longer rocks.

The flash had been the byproduct of a transformation. Beneath his hands the rocks had simply materialised into something else, in a split-second, and his body had complied with it completely, loosed all tension from his muscles and registered that his arms no longer held projectiles, but weapons. Pistols. Of the sleekest chrome, tailored to his grip and hand. Pistols, frames as light as feathers, rounds as solid as steel. Pistols. Clutched between his very fingers.

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!" Lazarus screamed, a vindictive beam shooting onto his face. His body had not so much been ready and responsive to this transformation as it had been a part of it. Before his mind could even process what had happened, he was howling, grinning, and firing. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. The guns were positioned somehow perfectly even just initially, at the perfect arcs and angles, and the redhead continued to spin them further out, widening his armspan to accommodate for the avians' movements. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. In alternation and with perfect skill, perfect reliance, and perfect familiarity with the weapons, in spite of their first appearance having only been microseconds ago, he pulled the triggers, lightened with almost no pull weight behind them whatsoever. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

A final screech signaled that this little masquerade of self-defense was complete.

The gunsmoke faded and left behind were only the shredded, bullet-riddled remnants of the avian creatures. Scattered wood and spirals of sawdust, disconnected bodies columns, bent sickles... every shot had been aimed almost perfectly, as if there was some instinct within Lazarus that made him a shooter. He lowered the weapons and looked at them with an awestruck regard in his hands, finally starting to process the facts. "Where in the..." The redhead trailed off into nowhere, looking from the guns down to the bodies. "Huh." That had been handy.

The last sparks of adrenaline faded from Laz's form as he carefully stepped over the bloodless corpses of the creatures. Inferis... Hell, she'd said. If this was Hell, were they... Demons? He double-took once more and stared back down at the corpses, scratching his head absentmindedly with the barrel of one of the pistols, still gripped tightly in his hands. He aligned himself in the centre of the interstate, and reaching out waved with both hands up in the air for her to catch up. "I'M OVER HERE!" The grin had faded by now. But in that single moment, a smile slipped onto Lazarus Carter's face for one reason and one reason alone.

He was alive.

[Yuuko Koizumi]

"Ugh... that idiot..." Yuuko murmured and looked around. She had lost his trail while he was running away from the demons. He was, luckily, pretty damn fast too. Almost as fast as Yuuko was (in Inferis). The only reason she couldn't keep up was because she was just exhausted. Hacking the thick blocks of wood that were a part of the demon's body had taken her awhile since they were so thick, and the demon could move so swiftly.

"Now where did he go.." She squinted her red and snake like eyes, scanning the area for any sign of the young man she had followed into Inferis. Hopefully he wasn't demon food yet, but that was only if he was still running or had somehow been able to keep them at bay. If not, then Yuuko would murder the demons herself and drag him back to Earth. No, he wouldn't be dead. Yuuko simply wouldn't allow someone to die while she was there to protect them.

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!" Oh, Yuuko found him. She looked over at the source of the shouting and the gun fire and began to go into a light jog towards it. It'd be pointless to get there and be exhausted, since she'd just end up dying by the hands of the demons. Her jog slowed into a walk when she noticed that the gun fire had stopped. The red-haired moron, holding two shiny pistols that hadn't been there before, flailed his arms and shouted to notify her of his presence. He had the stupidest grin on his face for a moment, but it vanished as Yuuko walked closer.

Yuuko could feel the gash on her face expel a little more blood before scabbing over. She nonchalantly raised her arm to her cheek and wiped off the blood. The only reason Yuuko's entire body wasn't riddled with scars was because of her healing abilities. They saved her life most of the time, though sometimes she had to go back to Earth before they could finish and so some of her wounds would never get healed. Those were the ones that left scars, but Yuuko just hid them with her clothing. "Hmpf, I see you've discovered your abilities in the nick of time," she commented to the young man casually as she propped her katana on her shoulder. "Well that was dumb luck. Just remember not to get cocky," Yuuko muttered to him while reaching down and picking up a chunk of broken wood from the demons, "or you'll die." She crushed the wood like a grape between her fingers and let the saw dust float to the ground.

"Come on, let's leave before more decide to come. If there was that many here at once, then there's no doubt that there's more close by." Yuuko turned on her heel and began walking towards the place where they had arrived. She knew the exact spot since she had thrown her katana's sheath there. With a soft but tired sigh, she bent over to grab it. Yuuko knew that her skirt was showing a little more than it should but it's not like she cared. As long as the young man didn't say anything they'd be fine. Smart comments would get him another kick in the ribs, except this time she wouldn't hold back.

[Lazarus Carter]

"Hmpf, I see you've discovered your abilities in the nick of time," And she had returned, bitchy still, and immediately putting a damper on his mood. With every flicker of light that rolled off her tongue in perfect synchronicity with the audible sounds of her speech, he squinted and stared off at her, still holding the pistols in his hands. "Well that was dumb luck. Just remember not to get cocky," Logical, eh, to tell someone holding a pair of guns why it was a bad idea to get cocky. I'm sorry, what was that? "or you'll die."

He scanned the strewn remnants of the birdbrain Demons once more and sighed as she made her comments. "Look," Lazarus commented. "Not to be a dick," Which usually prefaced a dickish comment. "But I'm seeing two dead on my part to your one, and I'm pretty sure about that little slash on your cheek not just being a papercut, so..." With a proud, half-joke of a grin, he jerked a casual thumb towards his chest, still holding the guns by the black-clad ergonomic grips. "I think I win this one." Perhaps tact wasn't quite the redhead's forté.

"Come on, let's leave before more decide to come. If there was that many here at once, then there's no doubt that there's more close by." Though her prior assertions hadn't, in his view, been on the money, in that she was right. Lazarus nodded swiftly in concurrence, still holding the guns for he wasn't sure what to do with them - though, with a small patting down, he had noticed that there was an unusual added bulk and weight beneath his jacket. Following up the investigation, he unzipped it to reveal a pair of crossed bandoliers, made of tough-looking black fabric, each of which held a gleaming chromed clip of small, brass-jacketed rounds with their specific bronze heads at the end of the bullets.

"Huh." He said, looking once more at the guns, then back to the crossed bandoliers over the simple red tee he'd decided to don today. Seemed that even though his jacket and pants' tint had inverted completely, his underclothing remained the same colour. He hoped his boxers hadn't changed, though being around the girl, he figured it wasn't exactly a great move to pull if he were simply to check them. Regardless, as they slowly made the walk back to their original position, in silence, from where the bird-things had attacked, he saw a great building in the distance.

It looked not dissimilar from a parking lot; though grey specks circled over the top of it over the horizon, and the unnatural chittering of the avian creations, though faint, was still tentatively audible. Ivy and moss ran up the side in off-green furrows visible from here, still against the crimson-brown sky, only a short distance - it appeared - from the chasm proper. "...whoa..." He muttered, half in awe and half in fear, dumbstruck all the same. A screech from below, and another flock of the bird-things rose upwards into the sky and shot off in the direction of what he could only presume to be a nest or hive of some sort - were they even organic? They didn't seem to be, and his shots and her slashes had yielded no blood or internal fluid. Luckily, the second group seemed to not have noticed the pair, tearing off into the sky and returning to what Lazarus could only presume to be home. "Fuck... must be a lot of them there..." The redhead murmured to himself in the moment of silence. "Y'know... someone should probably clean house..." It was but an absent thought; never had he thought that in a couple of weeks, it would be them performing that very same task - on the redhead's recommendation.

And now that things had calmed, a quirky thought punched itself into his head. They were back, more or less, where they had started, the sheath of her sword as a sign for that. He still didn't know her name. She was cold, young, bore glasses and had kind of a bitchy aura, but nothing he hadn't or couldn't deal with. Lazarus turned himself against the concrete barrier as she readied herself for their transport back - however it would happen. "I'm Lazarus, by the way." He shrugged, and absentmindedly itched his temple with the barrel of the pistol, not realising for a few moments that he could have potentially slipped and made things rather ugly in a matter of milliseconds. "Lazarus Carter. Call me Laz."

Another pause, and he thought it best to continue, folding his arms and trying to at least return to a half-casual pose. "Sorry about that," He half-yawned awkwardly, nervously and apprehensively scratching his head, remembering after a moment the pain in his ribs, wincing as the realisation brought the tenderness back in but a moment. "Guess I can be a bit stupid sometimes." And wasn't that the truth. For a moment, she bent down to grab the scabbard to the katana, and he raised an eyebrow, tilting his head ever so slightly to the side for just a split-second to get a better "view", before slapping himself back into line, and pretending nothing was awry as she turned back around. "So... who are you?" Another lapse between them, and he jerked forwards with an addendum. "And how the hell do we get home?"

[Yuuko Koizumi]

"So... who are you? And how the hell do we get home?" Ah, wasn't that a great question. Who was Yuuko? She didn't really know herself. Nonetheless, she at least had a name to give. "I am Yuuko Koizumi. And we get out of here by opening the tear through our minds." Yuuko sheathed her sword and stretched a bit with a sigh. At least it was over for now. But that nest was still a problem. Yuuko would have to destroy it. Yuuko knew her limits though, and knew she'd need help.

"That nest.. we need to clear it." Yuuko reached into her pocket and pulled out her cellphone, turned it on, and went to the phone book. "Your number. Give me it so we can stay in contact. Then we'll make plans to destroy the nest." Yuuko rattled off her number and when she received his she quickly typed it in. After the mission she'd probably delete it. If her "friends" saw it they'd interrogate her, and Yuuko didn't need that. She also didn't need people making false assumptions about her life and her relationships. Yuuko was single, and she didn't believe that it'd be changing any time soon. Sure, people asked her out a lot. Did she ever accept those invitations? No. Her life was far too complex for any of them to understand...

"From here until we clear the demon nest, you and I are a team. Lazarus Carter, I ask for only your dedication and hard work in this. Fail, and I won't forgive you. After killing the demons, we'll go our separate ways. No strings attached. You won't have to see me again, you won't have to talk to me again." Yuuko shut off her phone and slipped it back into her pocket. "We do this, and then you're home free."

Yuuko sighed and wiped some of her ebony hair out of her face before looking up at him again. "Let's go back now. Your car is probably fucked." And with that being said, Yuuko opened the tear and they returned. The sounds of honking cars and people cursing each other out reached her ears. They were back.

((End Thread))

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