paixaorpg | Dead Rising [Active/Closed]

Character(s): Hades and Megara
Content: Hades hardly needs a life, but
Setting: Pride Lands - Elephant Graveyard
Time: Dusk, week 34. Sometime after this post.
Warnings: Zombie elephants? Hades being a creeper? Yeah. Actually in all honestly it might be a little sickening. Seriously, zombie elephants.

Hades had already started his work without any onlookers, the souls of the long since dead crawling and wading across dust and ash in search of their skeletons, as though in search of home. He chuckled, shadows skittering from the base of his body, slipping into cracks of the ground and dragging the dead from the depths. To some the sight could be disgusting; to Hades it was a work of true art.

The souls staggered and tripped, moving from one set of bones to the next until they connected with them, until they found that "home". From the bones came a strong stench, rancid and wafting into the air. Hades wasn't only bringing the souls to life, he was conjuring their flesh back to their being, some bodies torn up by predators, others simply from old, old, old age. The weak and the blind, the strong and the destructive. Souls that weren't ready to go, souls that still remembered the poachers picking them apart while on their last legs.

All across the graveyard the dead were rising, but they never made it to that state being fully alive. Their souls still didn't quite fit to the rotting meat and bone, and the air was clouded from their disconnected, transparent vestiges. Eerie, distorted trumpets followed as they drew up on four legs.

And Hades "invited" good ol', puppet Nutmeg to the scene. Isn't he so nice to you, Megara, giving you a front row seat - a "sneak peek" as it were?

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Megara's trip through the floors had been surprisingly uneventful...or perhaps not so surprising after all. The Heartless that seemed to plague others never showed up for her. No monsters, no villains. Perhaps they knew what the others did not: Megara belonged to Hades. That never changed.

Now she watched his macabre little show, disgust and scorn evident on her features. Being enslaved by a death god left little to shock a person, but still...you never really did get used to death and decay put on display in such a gratuitous manner. She crossed her arms -- and how happy was she that she still had arms, rather than wings or paws or whatever? -- and looked away.

Hades had enjoyed his stint as a vulture in baiting Yuna, but that was over and done with now. That was a game, and though in a way this was something much the same, he didn't think being a vulture put a more crafty spin to it (and Megara would probably only find it hysterical; he couldn't have that, he had a reputation to uphold).

He lets Megara be for only a short while after she arrives on the scene, then he's at her side in a blink, slinging an arm over his shoulders and grasping her close, waving his free hand before them. "Ah, Meggles! Isn't it beautiful?"

"Yeah, it's great. Think I saw something like it in the latest issue of Better Homes and Corpses." Meg barely repressed the shudder that ran along her spine as he pulled her close, her lip curling in distaste. "Is there a point to this or are you just trying to impress me?" Idly she tried pulling away from him.

He gives her a neutral look. "Am I impressing you?"

There was a point to this - well, a point to Meg being there - but it didn't hurt to ask.

"What, you even need to ask?" She filled her voice with enough fake sweetness to choke a horse. "I'm always impressed with the guy who holds my soul in thrall. Just seems smart." Meg finally pulled away, crossing her arms in her typical defensive gesture.

"Oh, you wound me," he says dully, rolling his eyes and pivoting around back to face his monstrous creations, spreading his arms wide. "I was thinking on putting on a show, a bit more impressive than my last." He frowns and squints over his shoulders to her. "Such a shame you weren't there for that one. It was spectacular. How about it, Megs, you could be a star!"

You really, really don't want to be his star. And in all reality, he wouldn't put her in that position. Currently she works best as an insider, getting all busy in the arms of others, so that when he needs it... he can pull on her little unseen chains and get exactly what he needed from those others. He needed more puppets like her. So malleable.

So this? This was Hades showing off and needing an audience that he didn't plan to have an undead elephant step on.

She looked up with quiet dread at the hideous creatures, feeling that good old dread and resignation in the pit of her stomach. Of course he was always going to pull her back in to his little games...but maybe this time she could be the one to decide just how she'd be played. She lowered her gaze from the undead elephants to Hades, smirking. "So you're, what...terrorizing lions and scaring birds now? Or do you actually have a point to this?"

"If you're not going to appreciate true art at work," he mumbles grouchily, putting and arm around her shoulder and pulling her close, "maybe you can tell me instead what you've been up too, hm? Meet anyone of interest? Make any good friends?" He gave her a squeeze. "Don't hold out on me. There must be something."

Nearby, the zombie elephants stomped closer. He did have a plan for them, he just hadn't... fully decided what that was yet. Maybe Megara could "accidentally" spawn some ideas.

She put her hand out and against his chest out of habit, as always desperate to put as much space between them as she could. Sneering, she didn't meet his eyes and tensed guiltily. "Me? Friends? Maybe you have me confused with some other girl enslaved to a god. Easy mistake to make, there's so many of us..."

"Don't try and lie to me! This is Paixao. Everyone makes friends in this city, even the tiniest little scrap of flesh." He throws her away from him, but the tendrils of darkness still follow her, wrapping around her back. Orange trickles into his blue flames in his annoyance, only a flicker, then gone again. "Even the puppets."

She stumbled, gasping as she nearly fell and then freezing entirely at the feel of that darkness creeping up her spine. Lifting a shaking hand to brush her bangs from her eyes, Meg desperately tried to gather composure. "...please. I'm not in the business of making friends, Hades. Never was. But...convenient meat shields? Sure." She smirked at the god, forcing herself to walk towards him, hips swaying.

"Men are all the same. A little wiggle, a little 'oh you're so strong' and they'll do anything for you." She flipped her ponytail back as she passed him, looking out over the ghastly scene in front of them. "All muscle, no brains. Perfect for a little extra protection, wouldn't you say?"

That pulls a grin across Hades' toothy face. "Convenience, yes. You're all about what's convenient, aren't you?" Congratulations, Meggles, Hades buys into her lies. This certainly won't come back to bite you someday. Of course not. Never.

"Perfect indeed."

He leans back, folding his arms, that sickly grin still in place. She'll always make a good puppet, bringing those around her into her suffering. It's a work of art, and he barely has to do a thing. Just pop into her business when she least expects it, when she's foolish enough to think he's gone. Every time, she never learns. It's wonderful. And the webs she weaves in the meantime... Webs that Hades will eventually take a hold of and pull.

Yuna, much as Hades tries to shape her, will never replace Megara.

"And you'll keep them close, won't you?"

Dead Rising [Active/Closed]

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