Yamiko Murakage
On the streets near Oxford, 2:50 PM GMT
Everything seemed to calm down a bit once Yamiko got off the highway. Although there was still a worry in the back of her mind about what the authorities would do about those teenage thugs she annihilated just north of here, the fact that no policemen were following her made her feel a little bit more safe. However, just out of curiosity, she turned on the news on her car's radio, and lo and behold, there was a breaking news flash about the incident:
"...authorities have gathered information from witnesses who all claim to have seen a group of students at the petrol station near Foxhollow Academy suddenly vanish into dust. Footage taken from security cameras at the petrol station confirm that the boys all disappeared in flashes of yellow smoke. Onlookers are wondering if this was the result of a rare paranormal event, or merely a trick of sorts. Further investigation into this matter shall ensue. And now, back to the anticipation around the rugby tournament between Oxford and long-time rival..."
Yamiko didn't give a rat's behind about sports. For a moment she wondered if Hastur's disappearing trick would work at a distance, for as far as she was concerned, all those big-time athletes didn't deserve to be on this planet either. Now that she thought about it, that was a pretty interesting trick. Anyway, at that point Yamiko was stopped at a busy intersection, with many university students either driving or walking home after a long day of classes. Or people heading towards the university wearing school colours and other paraphernalia, probably attendees of the rugby game mentioned on the news. A bunch of people gathering together to watch a bunch of big and poorly-armoured guys run around and bump into each other? Didn't sound like much fun to Yamiko. They could at least be flying around on broomsticks and trying to dodge balls homing in on them, at least. But no, the real world was boring and nonsensical.
Currently the crosswalks were occupied by parades of game-goers, taking forever to cross the street even after the traffic light turned. And at that point Yamiko had an idea. A small smirk spread across her face.
You all shall be banished to the Void. This dimension has no need of all that is here, in this space. Be gone.
While thinking this, she raised a palm out in front of her, just slightly above the steering wheel. And when she did, a yellow mist flooded into the intersection, out of trash cans, out of traffic signals, out of pretty much every orifice in the buildings and such near the intersection. It enveloped the whole intersection, covering the street, engulfing all people and objects so that nobody could see through it. At first, several people honked their horns on their cars. But as time went by, the number of horn-honkings decreased, until only two remained. The intersection seemed to quiet down, to the point that there was a haunting, empty silence in it.
After a while, the mist cleared, and when it did, Yamiko saw that over half the intersection seemed to be missing. All but about two or three of the people walking about had vanished. The only people left were a crossing guard, a lady carrying a bagful of groceries, and a little girl holding the grocery lady's hand. All the buildings directly bordering the intersection were empty, save for a couple of shocked shopkeepers and one nerdy-looking bloke in a bookstore. All but about two of the cars had vanished, as had all the cars behind her. The traffic lights in the intersection had also vanished. The streets did too... well, they actually just seemed that way, with the thick coat of yellow dust covering it.
Utterly shocked, Yamiko looked around at the damage done. She had succeeded in eliminating all the game-goers, but quite a few other people and even objects had vanished as well, including some tables that had been sitting outside a nearby cafe. As for the few people that were left, they looked around just as shocked as she was. One woman was complaining about her classmate suddenly disappearing. The crossing guard was picking up a handful of the yellow dust, letting it blow away in the breeze. After a while, more cars arrived at the intersection, either stopping before the blanket of yellow dust, or gingerly driving through it. Several of them were on their mobile phones, probably calling their friends/relatives or even the police about what happened.
Speaking of mobile phones, Yamiko's started to ring. From the ringtone, she could tell that the person calling was Brenda, one of her foster mothers. Probably calling to see how her week at school went. And her phone had fallen on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Leaning over, she extended her left hand to reach for it, but couldn't reach it without ducking enough to block her view of what was ahead. If only her fingers were just a bit longer... Just as she thought that, her index finger did in fact grow longer. Well not quite--it sprouted a black tentacle from its tip. One which wrapped around her phone and brought it close to her.
What in the world was that!? Yamiko thought. Did I seriously just grow a bloody tentacle!? What the...
She looked to the sides, and noticed that there were cars passing by her now. Hopefully none of them had seen her tentacle... By now it was none of her concern that she missed Brenda's call. She was worried. Worried about what was happening to her. Was this another trick of Hastur's? Speaking of Hastur, at that point his low and hollow voice spoke to her:
"So I see you have witnessed the consequence of making too general an affirmation. As a result, more vanished than you have hoped. Even that waiter at that cafe who you hated and was lurking at the back of your mind." Yamiko stopped to think. Hastur was right; she had glimpsed that waiter through the cafe window as she was driving by, and now he was no longer there inside. "You see, there is much benefit to being my servant. However, there is one problem. Cthulhu, my brother, has also awakened." Hastur's tone of voice grew even lower at the mention of Cthulhu. Which was a very silly-sounding name, Yamiko thought. "Like the rest of us, Cthulhu has also found a mortal to make a pact with. His name is Diego, and he resides across the pond. However, no ocean can separate the tension between us. You see, Cthulhu is the harbinger of madness. He is the bane of all, a disgrace to the rest of us. Yamiko, there is one task I want you to accomplish."
Yamiko paused. What sort of task? Was she supposed to just punch out Cthulhu? Nah, that seriously can't be it, can it?
"I want you to destroy Diego. And what's this? Ah, Cthulhu, that infidel. He is trying to amass the other Great Old Ones. You must eliminate their followers as well. Turn them to dust, just as you did with these people here."
"Well that sounds simple enough..." Yamiko thought back. "Thanks to you, I can destroy them pretty easily, can't I?"
It is not so easy..." Hastur grumbled. "You notice that a few people in this intersection are still standing. These are people who supposedly matter. Whose wills are strong. Who are somehow able to resist the Void. I daresay the same will be true of the other pawns Cthulhu's friends have chosen. But you must show no mercy. You must put aside all emotion, love, and selfishness, and focus on the all-encompassing power of the Void itself..."
"Wait, so... How much will I actually need to destroy?"
"In time, everything..."
Everything? Yamiko thought, as Hastur's voice faded away. And she heard a car horn right behind her. Immediately, she shot a glaring look at that insignificant bastard behind the wheel. All at once, he and the car also turned into a pile of yellow dust. Yamiko raised her eyebrows, slowly turning her head back around... And then she began to laugh. A delightful, satisfied laugh. This was beginning to get rather fun. It was as if she had the power to literally destroy everything in her way. She didn't like that all the dust was yellow though. Why can't it be purple or black instead? Ah well, for now, Yamiko needed to get out of here. In only a few blocks she would be at Lupin's place. Now there... there was a person who mattered.
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Edwin "Lupin" Tasselbury
A house near Oxford University, 2:50PM GMT
Lupin was all alone for the moment, while Merlin continued setting up materials for a banishing ritual elsewhere in the house. He wondered if that would even help... Would destroying the crystal really destroy Tsathoggua's influence over him? Oh well, he supposed it was worth a try. After all, destroying the crystal would also mean no more nightmares. And that would be a huge relief. Even now, he felt greatly weakened by those nightmares, unable to really do much besides sit there and mope over stuff. They made him feel that there really was no point to him being here, that he should have killed himself long ago rather than running away from his parents, that the only space for him was a void of nothingness. Especially since the only role he really played in society involved him quietly taking stuff away from it. As he sat there sipping at his tea, he started to wonder why he even took the crystal in the first place... For the first time in his life, he actually regretted stealing it--or anything for that matter.
"Aww, cheer up, mate," Tsathoggua's rumbling yet oddly peppy voice echoed in his head. "Yeesh, I only gave you those nightmares because HE told me to. And I cannot disobey his orders, as much as I would like to. Sorry, mate."
"Who's 'he'?" Lupin replied back. "Is it the 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' you mentioned before?" He knew the answer was yes immediately after he asked it, as if Tsathoggua had mentally given it to him. "What do you want from--I mean, what does HE want from me?"
"What HE wants, I cannot say," Tsathoggua replied. "He'd have my fat little head if I told you that. I'm not even sure if he wants anything from you in the first place. Well, I digress. I do know that you are not alone in this. There are others out there who have pledged their allegiance to others of us."
"Like Yamiko?" Lupin remembered how Yamiko had interacted with a similar crystal, and had similar nightmares...
"There are others, all over the world, methinks," Tsathoggua replied after hesitation, as if he was afraid to talk about Yamiko. Can gods even be afraid? "Or all over America at least. People who bonded with others like me."
"Others like you? Other gods, you mean?"
"Exactamundo. For example, there is Mordiggian, the Grim Reaper. I kid. He's the god of death, but he does remind me of that silly little human myth. His servant is Sabrina. And there's also Cthulhu, the crazy tentacled menace who Davy Jones seems to be based off of. His servant is Diego. Now, I need to ask a favour of you, Mr. Wolf."
"What sort of favour?" Lupin asked, dismissing Tsathoggua's calling him Mr. Wolf as part of his sense of humour.
"I need you to say hello to these two. These will be your friends during the upcoming events. They may live far away, but they will be important. You'll find you are already telepathically linked with them. Tell then who you are, where you live, you know, basic small talk. Not that I know much about socializing, as I spend all my time underground. You're on your own, kid."
Is he mental? Lupin wondered, thinking about what Tsathoggua had just said. Which is funny, because at this point, Tsathoggua literally is mental. Do I look like the social type? And I've never even used telepathy before... Ah well, it's better than interacting in person...
To prepare himself, he took another sip of his tea. For all we know, he needed that tiny bit of caffeine to make sure he doesn't fall asleep while reaching the others.
First he decided to address the God of Death, because that sounded way cooler. Plus, Sabrina was an interesting name. He had to wonder if she was some sort of witch or something.
"Hello. Sabrina, I presume?" Gosh, he couldn't think of the faintest thing to say next. "Erm... how do I say this... You are serving Mordiggian, aren't you? It seems all the gods are interconnected or something. I, for one, am associated with Tsathoggua, God of the Underground. My name is Lupin, and I'm here in the UK. Where are you?"
Wow, that was awkward. But that sounded like a good format for a message. He decided to use a similar one for this mysterious Diego bloke:
"Diego. Can you hear me? You have touched a black crystal and become cursed by it too, have you not? And now you are bonded to Cthulhu, I presume. It seems all the gods are trying to gather... I met the same fate and bonded to Tsathoggua, God of the Underground. My name is Lupin, and I'm here in the UK. Where are you?"
He rather liked the last part, so he kept it intact.
"Well, that's just about enough for now." For a moment, Lupin thought it was Diego replying back, but this was a voice well outside his head. It was Merlin, with Artemis following behind him. "The banishing ritual is best done at sunrise, so we have plenty of time beforehand." At that point, Artemis barked and wagged her tail. "What do you want?" Merlin asked her, taking a glance back at her. "She's been barking at me for the past minute or so. I can read auras, but not minds. Much less canine minds. Say, you're named after a wolf. Are you sure you can't understand dog-speak?"
"What am I supposed to do, turn into a wolf and talk to her?" Lupin sassed, not bothering to look at Merlin, and tiredly reaching for his teacup once more. But something was wrong. His hand never grasped the teacup; it was as if his thumb had magically disappeared. And he was squatting on the seat rather than his feet resting on the floor, though he didn't remember doing so. His senses seemed distorted. Was he falling into another nightmare? But this was far stranger... All the colours around him seemed a bit duller than before and there was something off about how his tea tasted, but all his other senses seemed enhanced somewhat. Especially his sense of smell. He could smell the incense from the ritual room all the way from here, and there was something peculiar, almost attractive, about how Artemis smelled.
Speaking of Artemis, Lupin heard her barking still, but it was quite different. The barks actually had meaning. Artemis was sounding impatient, which was unusual given her calm demeanour. And she was mentioning something about a bowl? And water? Ah, she was complaining about her water bowl being empty. And Merlin was usually the one who refilled it. No wonder she was bothering him. But wait. He was actually understanding what she was saying? That was odd indeed. And as for Merlin... His voice seemed muffled somewhat, but he could still make out his words. Merlin sounded utterly frozen in awe.
"What..." Merlin stammered, pointing an uncertain finger at him. "...Oh my..."
At that point, Lupin tried to ask "What's wrong", but it came out as a single sound instead, a bark-like sound.
"...You're..." It was as if Merlin had read his mind and figured out what he was trying to say anyway. "...You're a wolf! You just turned into a wolf!"
I... what? What was Merlin thinking? Lupin couldn't have possibly turned into a... Oh shipwreck. He did. He saw it as he looked down at his hand, which was now a furry paw. He looked into his teacup and saw his reflection, and sure enough, what he saw was a wolf's head. Apparently one with mostly black and grey and white fur, white around the nose and eyes, black on the outside of his face, and grey with black streaks along his back, though his legs and underside were white. He saw much of the latter as he looked around at himself, including that fluffy grey tail wagging behind him.
Almost immediately, he ducked under the table and walked under it, noting how weird it was to be walking on four legs instead of two. But it actually felt oddly natural to him. It was as if he had acquired all the basic wolf instincts due to being in the body of one... Speaking of which, he spotted Artemis from underneath the table, and thought she seemed prettier than usual, in a sense. Weird. For a while, he just enjoyed walking around the room, noticing how Artemis took steps away from him but couldn't stop staring at him. He stopped when he got close to Merlin, who gingerly reached down and petted his head.
"It's funny," Merlin commented as he squatted down to be more in level with Lupin. "I've heard of animal transformations in mythology where the person kept most of their physical features even in animal form. You have the same eyes as before. And you're just about as thin as you were before." He noted how Lupin's ribs were showing through the shorter parts of his fur. "It's like I know it's you, even though it technically isn't. Well. At least now you truly live up to the name of Lupin."
Merlin was right, in a sense, given how the name Lupin was in fact a derivative of the Latin word for wolf. But just at that point, something else spoke to him. A voice, speaking through his mind...
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OOC: The voice Lupin hears in his head in the end is either Diego's or Sabrina's reply to him.