Twin, hollow crunching noises ring in your ears as the jaw dislocates. The pale flesh of the cheeks tears, spilling not blood but shadow. As thick as smoke, as black as night, billowing from the rents in your body and from the back of your darkening throat. Your makeshift maw splits open from ear to ear, the shadows solidifying into finger-long fangs. Darkness billows from the infinite black pit within, translucent wisps swishing and grasping, seeming to absorb the light itself.
You close your mouth again, and the prey's form becomes pristine once more.
beautiful
You spread your arms wide, and the skin ripples. The air comes alive with the rustle of furiously flapping wings, feathers the colour of oil flying in all directions like black snow. A murder of crows sprout from you and take flight, cawing hoarsely, flitting back and forth until they finally settle on their various perches. Long talons flexing almost eagerly, little heads twitching and turning this way, the better to get a good angle as they stare at you with their beady, burning orange-scarlet eyes. One specimen in particular stands out to you, larger than the rest, and older enough to have almost fully formed a scarlet-etched mask of ivory bone over its face and beak.
You look at them all, and you see 'yourself' from a dozen different angles at once.
"I think I remember you," you say.
"Rawk," caws the eldest.
"Oh," you reply. Even it had a voice, the process of being digested into a familiar would have robbed it of that gift anyway. You half-turn and raise one arm, as if offering it as a perch. The crows take flight in another flurry of flapping wings, returning home with all due haste. They overlap each other, phase through each other, losing form and definition, until what seeps through the pores of Jaune's skin and back into your core is little more than black smoke.
You waste no time attempting a second call. You raise your hands once more, palms down, as if commanding the carpet itself to rise. For just a moment you possess a shadow, a simple ring of darkness around your bare feet. It divides into four, streaking off across the room like painted black arrows, seeking out shaded nooks and crannies of their own from which to emerge.
"So, as I pray, Unlimited Shit I Ate Works."
No, but seriously? This is really cool as an ability. Hey, we can use it as an in, to make ourselves look more impressive than we actually are! By killing things we've already killed and are in complete control of!
"Also put some pants on. Mean I know it's bad enough you ate the kid, but you don't have to show his dick to everyone in Vale. S'just adding insult to injury."
Roman, you're a dick. I want to keep you around.
Mmmm. All the options are fun or interesting.
[ ] The faunus district. The man says that it's 'colourful' there, excellent for business, and full of people willing to look the other way for the right price.
So, this is essentially the fantasy anime ghetto. As players, we know that Roman probably has some contact with the White Fang, so we might end up meeting someone from there here. Even if Zerban doesn't stick to canon worldbuilding stuff. As a Grimm monstrosity who is a mockery in the face of God, we might meet people who will eventually be useful to us (see transcripts) or could provide us sustenance (hey, free body disposal). Exposition on the Faunus
[ ] The docks. The man seems to give up halfway through trying to explain the greater concept of the place to you, and settles on saying it's Vale's mouth and fangs. You think you understand the gist of what he meant.
This might lead to more broad exposition on the state of the world? Also, Roman is surprisingly good at explaining this stuff - that's a pretty decent analogy.
[ ] The Schnee Industries company town. It's a lot of words that elicit blank stares from you, so the man gets exasperated and settles on saying that it's probably important no matter what you get up to.
Ah, the smell of exploitation of labour. Would be interesting to see Zerban's portrayal of it.
[ ] His favourite haunt. He doesn't give you a straight answer when you ask what its use will be in your purpose, but you suspect he just wants to go there anyway.
I'm
guessing this is Junior's bar? We get to interact with more people, since they'll probably be curious about this random blonde teenager Roman's brought to the bar. Which might be amusing, given Jaune Dark's utter unfamiliarity with human social convention, even with Jaune Ark's brain. Actually, we may be even worse with Jaune Ark's brain, relative to just trying to tear people's throats out with the yawning void that is our jaw.
Also, possibility of encountering Yang. Which'd make for interesting reading.
[ ] The shopping promenade. He once again gets exasperated and gives up trying to explain the concept behind buying and selling, but he does mention something about food. Perhaps he means it's the easiest place to find more prey?
Do you want to see Jaune Dark interact with human food? That isn't actually made of human? I kind of do.
[X] His favourite haunt. He doesn't give you a straight answer when you ask what its use will be in your purpose, but you suspect he just wants to go there anyway.
Protip: if someone starts trying to stare you out, replace your eyes with gaping voids that seek to devour all life. Works everytime.