Oath Sign: What Dreams May Come

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While we wait, here's more Grimdark Rachel being Grimdark (although your mileage may vary applies).

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Rachel pulled out the cables closer, until the sparks from the exposed copper wire illuminated. The tree-thing's panic peaked, gasping and hyperventilating and trying to squirm out of the enraged operative's grasp.

"I didn't always fly a desk," Rachel said wistfully, ignoring the plant's plight, "I used to be in Intelligence. In field operations. Infiltration, sabotage... All that secret, backstabby stuff. "Heartbreaker", they called me," she recalled fondly, "But you know that, right?"

"Yes!" the tree squeaked, "We... W-we have you on file. Y-your record..." His eyes lit up with a faint glimmer of hope. "D-did you k-know, t-ha... that you were in the list of candidates?"

Rachel raised an eyebrow by a millimetre, and the wires drifted away. "... Really?" she asked, sounding curious.

"Y-yes!" she alien said, nodding feverishly, "Y-you and Numbuh 274- I mean Chad! You were both the top of your class, above and beyond the other operatives in the Kids Next Door! You know the reputation Chad had... great leader, excellent operative, c-charismatic, unbeatable in the training ring... And you! Director of Intelligence, spotless record, great strategist and planner-"

"And yet," Rachel interrupted, "Here we are. How strange."

The tree gulped. "N-numbuh One rose up in prominence after Chad, uh, pretended to defect. A-and you... I don't know!" it cried, "N-nuh-Numbuh Infinity w-was the one who v-vetoed your application before w-we had a chance to t-tell you! H-he f-ound something when he was digging through your files, something about a Sector that doesn't exist-"

"You mean Sector S?" Rachel asked. At the tree's nod, she chuckled darkly. "Oh, it exists. And I can see why he wouldn't want me to be part of your little club if that's what he found."

"A-and what would that be?" the tree asked.

"I don't remember!" Rachel said, cheerfully, "Really, I don't. Partial Decomissioning is a thing when you're working with that level of secrecy; Numbuh Infinity probably knows more about what I did than I do."

For some reason, Rachel found this to be hilarious. She giggled, and then brought the sparkling cables closer.

"Aha!" she cried, "You were trying to distract me!" She grinned. "Clever little tree, you ought to ask for a medal. If there's enough of you left afterwards. But as I was saying; I was in Intelligence once. And there's a really, really simple way to test how dedicated an operative is to the cause: pain."

She held the sparking wires between her and the tree, the light from the arcing electrical current giving her face an almost demonic appearance.

"Resisting torture was a key part of my training at Spy School," she explained, slowly bringing the wires closer to the tree's leaves, "After all, an infiltrator who blabs at the suggestion of merely being force-fed asparagus is a really cruddy infiltrator, and there are worse things out there that they can threaten you with.

"And sure, there are ways to train yourself to resist pain and suffering," she continued, "To make it seem... less than what it really is. But at the end of the day, it all boils down to a very simple question: How much pain is your loyalty worth? Is it worth eating through a wall of broccoli? Is it worth a month in a cell with no sun and little food? Or, more to the point, is it worth being set on fire?"

The tree thing gibbered. It sounded like it was begging for mercy.

Rachel ignored it.

The wires brushed the leaves. It took a while for the fire to get started, the tree wailing and flailing the whole time. Rachel didn't mind the hits, she could take the pain.

"There are two fire extinguishers nearby," Rachel said, quickly and loudly enough to get the tree's attention, "One of them is in the elevator right behind me. The other's past that door, down a long, long corridor. Go for the one deeper inside -passcode's 1-9-1-5, by the way- and you can lock the door behind you; stopping me from going further in and foiling my plans. But, to do that, you'll have to go though a pain you can't even begin to imagine. You might not even make it to the extinguisher, even!"

"Go for the one in the elevator, you'll just have to go through a little bit of pain. Bu if you do, I'll lock the door, send you up, and collapse the shaft, making it very hard for any of your buddies to get down here and stop me."

She abruptly let go of the tree, and took two steps back.

"So," she said, opening her arms, "What's it gonna be, Numbuh 74.239?"
 
*Rereading thread*

I wonder when this will update...

Narcissist said:
Theoretically someone could play Satsuki, right?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

...Well, I did have this sheet hanging around. Was probably going to use it in the next Oath Sign, whenever it happens. May as well post it.

Name: Satsuki Yumizuka
Picture:

(Note: Eyes are red and the pupil is slit-like due to being a Dead Apostle.)
Universe: Type-Moon, Tsukihime
Powers:
  • Superhuman Physical Prowess: As a Dead Apostle who has come close to the level of 'Ancestor', Satsuki has very potent physical stats. Vampires that have just matured to the stage of 'truly intelligent minion' are fast enough that they can see and dodge bullets that have already left the gun barrel, and Satsuki is vastly further along in development, and accordingly faster. She is incredibly strong physically, capable of reducing a normal person to pulp with a single sloppy punch, and speed allows many such blows to be throw out in rapid succession. She is also capable of withstanding such barrages without having to rely on her healing ability just to survive. However, due to her gentle life and lack of training, her actual fighting skills are practically nonexistent, and she relies purely on instinct and brute force. Being something dead, the heart no longer beats, body temperature is the same as room temperature, and the nervous system no longer appears to give off any activity. Used to experience chronic pain before the nerves completely died off due to the rapidness of her transformation into a vampire.
  • Superhuman Senses: Can see in pitch darkness, hear a persons heartbeat from across a room, and track people by scent. Can also determine things about a person by tasting blood, such as concentration of alcohol in the body.
  • Claws: The fingers have extremely sharp, durable, and retractable claws hidden inside them capable of shredding through solid stone even with relatively normal strength. With superhuman strength, they are very deadly weapons.
  • Mystic Eyes of Enchantment: Eyes capable of high level hypnosis. By meeting another persons gaze, she implant illusions or give 'irrefutable' commands to that person. Long term commands and a sense of trust will remain even after eye contact is broken. However, they have several weaknesses; they require direct eye contact to function, with things such as mirrored glasses preventing it from working. Second, sufficient supernatural power will erode the hypnosis before it can take hold, preventing commands from being implanted at all. Thirdly, sufficient willpower can enable one to resist performing commands, though it is usually painful and exhausting to try. When in use, Satsuki's irises turn golden.
  • Blood Drinking: Satsuki drinks blood. Satsuki needs to drink blood, because it's her food source, and fuels her powers. While the blood of human virgins tastes best and is the most nutritious for magical reasons, animal blood is a viable substitute. If she doesn't drink her 'food' regularly, her body will start to rot, her mental control over her urges will begin to dissipate, her powers will weaken, and eventually, she will die of starvation. If she injects her own blood into a person, it will act as a poison, turning them into an undead creature, though whether they become a mere zombie puppet or something that can actually think for itself depends on their magical potential. A completely mundane person with no meaningful potential will become a Dead. 1 in 100 people may become a Ghoul, which has the intelligence of a mere animal, and simply hungers for flesh. 1 out of 1,000 may become a Living Dead, which can think to some degree, but needs to consume blood to restore its intellect. Eventually, Living Dead can mature into Vampires. 1 in 10,000 has the potential to both become a vampire and eventually break free from the parent, becoming a Dead Apostle. Generally, this process takes a very long time, but stages can be skipped with sufficient magical potential and compatibility for the process.
  • Curse of Restoration: A regeneration ability that causes 'time' on her body to turn backwards whenever an injury is received, making her recover from wounds at a rapid pace and prevents too much degradation of the body if she keeps drinking blood. This will also undo any rotting from starvation once she starts feeding again. At her current level of development, so long as the brain is not definitively destroyed, she will continue to be 'alive' and regenerate. Simply being shot oin the head is not sufficient, it must be obliterated. However, sunlight slows and diminishes its operation, meaning wounds that wouldn't kill her normally will be fatal if done under the sun or using a power related to it.
  • Vampiric Weaknesses: Dead Apostles have two major weaknesses; the light of the sun, and running water. Both physically and magically weaken them, but only those that haven't developed very much can be directly destroyed by this. Sunlight lowers physical strength to something not much greater than that of a normal human, and makes her feel ill and dazed, meaning even walking straight is difficult in sunlight. It also speeds up the degradation of the body, meaning that exposure to sunlight causes her appetite for blood and her urges to spike. Bodies of running water also weaken to some degree her and make her feel sick, but unless she is actually submerged, it does not appear meaningfully different than normal sea-sickness. Crossing a small stream by jumping is no big deal, and riding in a boat for a short time period will not weaken her, but crossing oceans or residing over water is a bad proposition. Both weaknesses will also make the Curse of Restoration less effective.
  • Magic Potential: Satsuki's natural energy reserves and ability to process magic are completely ridiculous. Her potential is a mage is ridiculous, enabling her to leapfrog 100 years into her development as a vampire and become a Dead Apostle in less than a day after being turned, even though only 1 in a 10,000 would ever have the slightest chance of ever making it to that level given a century to try. She also spontaneously developed something usually possessed by millennium class vampires within a year of becoming a Dead Apostle. This immense potential is primarily held back by the fact that Satsuki knows diddly squat about magic. She was born to a normal family unaware of the supernatural, and no mage has ever seen fit to teach her so much as a cantrip or even throw an outdated 'Magic for Dummies' book at her. The only spell she knows is the most personal one there can be, unique to each person who uses it, and Satsuki cannot be said to have learned it, as she only uses it on instinct without conscious understanding of what she's doing.
  • Reality Marble; Depletion Garden: The single spell that Satsuki knows. Essentially, it is a personalized pocket dimension that overwrites the surroundings to temporarily trap Satsuki and others in a reality with slightly different rules, and cutting off all connections to the outside. When first activated, it will appear as a verdant and fertile garden with a clear blue sky, but it will quickly begin to rot. It will begin to resemble a desiccated landscape hit by drought, with scattered dead trees and dead leaves falling from nowhere. The sky will turn red and the clouds will thicken and become dark black. It is, essentially, a land of loss. Depletion Garden eliminates all mana in the air, not draining it or moving it, but completely destroying it. It is all but impossible to cast a spell in this landscape, and even the most powerful become feeble things that rapidly cease to exist. Magical items become all but impossible to use. More dangerously, entities such as elementals and phantasmal species used to receiving energy from an outside source or living in environments with high amounts of mana find being inside akin to being almost unable to breathe, as if being abruptly transported to the top of a tall mountain with an extremely thin oxygen density. They find the environment oppressive, with the effect growing all the worse as their energy runs out. Of course, it has no effect on ordinary humans or technology, who find nothing wrong with the environment inside it, other than lack of food.
Personality: Satsuki is shy and possesses and inferiority complex that leads to her fading into the background, and her lack of willingness to stand up and assert herself lends to people forgetting her name or deeds. Her unwilling and sudden transformation into a vampire as her first introduction to the supernatural did not help matters, as being an undead creature reduced to surviving parasitically on blood has caused her sense of self-worth to plummet further. She does however, care about other people and will side with humans if at all possible. She nursed a one-sided crush on Shiki Tohno over something relatively minor, showing desperation for a connection to someone else. When given the opportunity, she made friends with Sion, Len, and Riesbyfe surprisingly easily, and is surprisingly quick to offer forgiveness to those who have wronged her, believing that even the worst deserve at least a chance at redemption. While she has the ability to control humans with her gaze, she prefers to live like a hobo rather than take advantage of it to make her life easier. She also seems to feel that she is either unworthy of living with her parents due to her condition, or wants to protect them from getting involved, as she does not speak to them again even in the timelines where she gains control over herself after becoming a vampire. However, she still has vampiric impulses, and occasional violent urges from her inhuman side. While these are mostly under her control, that doesn't mean they don't exist.
 
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