Match of the Millennium

Description: When Crock loots a chinese food dumpster, licking his wounds and trying out his new guitar, he attracts the attention of Internet Celebrity Cosplayer Lyraelle. Without any cameras, however, the real queen reveals herself. But so does the punk rocker...

[CROCK]
Crock was falling behind on his anarchy.

The chaos he had spread in Southtown was just a ball of wax that falling on the termites. A shard, a splinter of destruction against the concrete spires around the city. The monsters, the real monsters, were what people were afraid of. He was just a punk. He was spreading his own filth around.

But not enough people were getting dirty.

The red-mohwaked punk was dressed in his tattered green denim jacket and jeans, sitting outside the alleyway of an abandoned Chinese resteraunt. He was eating stuff he found. Made him sick. But as he picked through the thawed out rice and roast pork, he was working with his electric guitar. Strumming it silently. Feeling how it felt, as the energy below filtered up and through him. His body was getting badly broken. The fucking dragon was the one who really messed him up. But just sitting against the dumpster, letting the empty music flow up and down, cycling through, let his bones mend his wounds close and his organs stop screaming at him. It wasn't relaxing, it never could be relaxing in his blood. Anger and hatred was like a hair trigger. He always wanted to fight. He could never stop fighting.

That was the price of the arrangement, after all.

[LYRAELLE]
Amidst all the dirty people and dirtier things that have come spilling through the streets of Southtown in the tide of violence, one particular butterfly remains impossibly pristine. Not a literal insect, of course; she may be a monarch, but her colours are trendy pink, infernal green and royal purple, not black and gold and white. Nevertheless, Her Royal Majesty Queen Lyraelle Darkheart flits amongst the chaos like a butterfly looking for nectar; presently, she soars above the streets of Chinatown, her pink ponytail trailing behind her as though she were posing for a hair commercial (though that sponsor slot remains open!).

When she spies the broken and battered figure sitting outside the alleyway by the Chinese restaurant, she at first dismisses it as she would any other detritus lying around in the street. She glides past, initially, but banks as she nears the next block, turning around and returning to touch down on the road several yards away from Crock. Her purple high heels click lightly on the asphalt as she approaches, her hands moving haughtily to her hips as she stops a few yards from the punk.

"How dirty. You know, vagrancy is a crime," she chastises the punk arrogantly.

Under the right circumstances, the Demon Queen might have shown compassion, or at least left the musician to eat his garbage in peace. But there are no cameras around, no publicity for her magnanimity, no traces of holy essence in her veins. Others have encountered better sides of Lyraelle in the Nurse, Sister and Saviour; Crock is now subject to the Aristocrat.

[CROCK]
Crock had some strong opinions on aristocracy.

As he lingers in his filth and eats his filth and plays his filth, the click of heels doesn't stop his strumming. Just his eating. Eyes cast up to the nobility, a scowl seared on his studded face. And then, down to the heels. And then, back up. Something was -off- about the woman. He wasn't one to judge. All the monsters have left him alone so far; as long as you all throng in the same direction, it seemed that they couldn't seperate the man from the beast. But this woman... this thing was looking down at him. And that triggers some innate fury from the young man.

"And being a bitch isn't."

He snarls, as he strums on his new guitar silently. "You got somewhere to go, lady?" Crock hisses, as he kicks over his food in a surge of fury. "You look like you're into some trouble." Crock rises up, clinging to his guitar. "Come on, you got better lines than that. How about my hair next. My diet? My clothes, my conduct. Oh, oh yeah, that's some real contempt rolling out. Come on, bitch, tell me what -really- getting you itchy with me." Crock was rambling again, building himself into a frenzy. The flow of energy accelerates up and down, cycling through him as he keeps his feet on the ground. He hated being looked down on.

And he loved being hated these days.

[LYRAELLE]
The Demon Queen's hands remain on her hips, her spaded tail flicking idly behind her as her wings fold and her green eyes fall dimly on the vagrant punk rocker. She weathers the tirade from Crock impassively, her lips pursed and expression unchanging, as though the frothing rocker's sound and fury were beneath her consideration.

The truth, though, is that something about Crock /has/ piqued Lyraelle's infernal interest. Something itches at the back of her neck, and it's not just whatever vermin might have transferred between the ideological opposites already. Something beyond the apparent lack of aspiration that is anathema to her own queenly nature.

She just doesn't let it show.

"What really gets me itchy about you," Lyraelle says with the air and airiness of assumed authority as her right hand rises and stretches off to her side, "is that despite being a commoner, you still haven't addressed me by any of my proper titles."

Leather-clad fingers snap, and a whip of green flame snakes into existence from within her grasp.

"You are within your rights to refer to me as 'Your Majesty,' 'Your Grace,' 'Your Highness,' 'Lady Sovereign,' 'Mistress Darkheart,' or, and this is my preferred one:"

The demoness draws the fingers of her left hand across the business end of her burning whip, stretching it taut before flexing and testing it like a physical thing in spite of its mystical nature.

"...My Queen."

Her eyes narrow ever so slightly, the first change in her expression since her initial regards.

"Now, swear fealty to me, and I may find it within myself to forgive your transgressions..."

There's a slight pause for emphasis.

"...Peasant."

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Lyraelle         0/-------/-------|

COMBATSYS: Crock has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Lyraelle         0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Crock

[CROCK]
Crock was shaking.

Oh, at first, he was just mad. As that hand gets on the hips, he had hoped that he drew a little blood. He had that shit-eating grin as he lets his filth smear back. But then she retaliates. This was outrageous. This was outraging him, that she demanded titles. Labels. Commoner. Your Majesty. Grace. Highness. Lady Sovereign. Mistress Darkheart. Queen. Crock had a lot of things he did not like about women. But the idea that a woman was going to come out on the street to him, and demand to be treated like this? Well. It's like the fuse of a bomb was lit. He was doing everything he could to keep it together.

And then she had to go and say peasant.

"The name's..." He starts, as he -hurls- himself straight for the woman. No finesse, no form, nothing but the full-bodied charge as he flings himself into the air. The connection, the flow breaks. And spittle flies from his mouth as he brings his guitar around by the neck, and attempts to -cave- it right into that smug queenly face as he howls out.

"C-ROCK!"

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle dodges Crock's Fierce Strike.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Lyraelle         0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Crock

[LYRAELLE]
As the enraged rocker rises against her, there's the slightest twinge of a smirk at the corner of Lyraelle's lips. Is it self-satisfaction, or a sign that she's been goading the guitarist all along? A Lady doesn't tell.

The succubus slips sensuously around the strike, a small spin carrying her just out of harm's way, graciously allowing the filthy musician to brush against her shoulder and hip en passant. The whip flexes in her hands.

"And mine..."

There's a subtle shift in tone, from dictatorial dominatrix to temerarious trickster, as her right hand draws back with a squeak of leather.

"...is Lyraelle~"

And then, leaping maddeningly out of reach with a thrust of her long legs and beat of wings, the Demon Queen brings the sizzling scourge streaking down toward Crock, aiming to strike him across the body with a powerful crack before her heels click down once more, several feet away.

COMBATSYS: Crock blocks Lyraelle's Imperious Scourge.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Lyraelle         0/-------/------=|==-----\-------\0            Crock

[CROCK]
She was fast.

Not that much to say about it. As he brings the guitar smashing down into the ground, the rocker turns his head, exposed. -Very- exposed, in fact. As the demonness plays with his two heartstings, daring to tug them down, the punk actually feels small for a moment. It wasn't a good feeling, as it goes from master and servant into something a little more intimate. Crock feels very hot, as the long legs pushes away. And with it, a fiery lash of raw energy comes rioting down. The rocker actually brings his arms up as if it could stop the raw power... but it does. It -does- stop it, diffusing with a surge of orange energy. The earth cracks, a crater bursting around him as his aura surges against it. He stands fast, dropping his arm, as he levels his guitar.

And he shakes his head.

"What are you?" Crock states, his jackass act dropping a moment. "Are you a temptation? Are you trying to steer me away? Or are you just another monster? The world needs to be destroyed. There should be no more kings. No more queens. AND EVERY TYRANT SHOULD TREMBLE!" Crock jerks to life, his act back up, as he leaps at the queen, arms and guitar out into a full body splash at her. Should he connect? It would bring a second crater to the ground, as he would bounce back for a second hit, bringing a third crater in the alleyway.

Honestly not the first time a man's wanted to do that to Lyraelle, probably.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle interrupts Hey! Where Is My Catnap? from Crock with Infernal Majesty.

[     \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Lyraelle         0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0            Crock

[LYRAELLE]
There's a brief orange glow that dances in Lyraelle's eyes as the punk rocker's aura pushes back against her infernal chi. The whip consumes itself, dissipating into acrid smoke, as Lyraelle turns those covetous eyes up to follow the arc of the flying punk. Her wings lift her slightly off the ground, but metaphorically speaking, she stands it - practically inviting the onslaught.

Queen and Crock collide, cratering into the ground, the demoness' wings steeling against the crash. Though her pink-crowned head is jostled with the impact, the closeness allows her gaze to meet Crock's unwaveringly.

"Haven't you heard?"

Lyraelle's limbs snake around Crock's as they bounce off of the ground, a bizarre degree of intimacy contrasting with the contempt shown seconds earlier. The Ice Queen act melts into a smile.

"I'm the new hotness."

With a wink, the pair are suddenly engulfed in a green corona as Lyraelle ignites with infernal energy. The demoness seems to relax with the release, and a giggle can be heard from amidst the conflagration.

[CROCK]
It almost comes as a full bodysplash.

When he connects, she suddenly takes it a lot closer than he wanted. There wouldn't be a second splash: the fires spread all around. Crock actually howls in horror and pain, as he is ignited. He stops, drops, and rolls, tumbling away in agony. He wasn't going out. He is forced to stand up, as the second degree turns into third. It was a game. A game he was losing. Desperately, he steadies himself out to get the guitar around. He drops his fingers down, feet fixed on the ground.

And the fires are swept away by a steady drone.

He was burnt badly. Crock was strumming on the guitar again. This time, there was a sound. A deep droning, as he strums chords upon the electric guitar. It wasn't from the guitar properly. It was something else, something within Crock himself. Not flowing up from the earth; though the energy was certainly cycling through. "New hotness... old hotness... it's all the same. A glamour queen looking to make a face for herself, another host of people to step on. You're nothing but garterbelts, lace, and LEATHER! WHAT ARE YOU!" A shudder runs through the ground, cracks beginning to form around him. Now, waves of sound were beginning to pass through the alleyway. The dumpster first shook. Then, rattled. Then jumped from it's stand. Reverbs, back and forth, growing stronger an stronger. It was coming into an apex now, as he growls.

"And where will you be when everything's gone?"

COMBATSYS: Crock charges his next attack!

[     \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Lyraelle         0/-------/---====|=======\=------\1            Crock

[LYRAELLE]
The entanglement ends as violently as it began, and Lyraelle is left lying in the alleyway, her arms and legs akimbo in the crater as she takes the opportunity posed by Crock's combustion to stretch her limbs languorously, her face tightening as she fights back a yawn. She presses her hands against the ground and pushes herself up to her feet, smoke still rising off of her, and brushes smoldering debris from her skin with her gloved hands. There are some bruises forming on the visible bits of the back of her body from hitting the ground, but she's otherwise relatively unscathed. She turns to look over her shoulder toward the sound of Crock's guitar, her pointed ears pricking at the noise.

"You forgot bat wings and brimstone," she says, her lips pulling into a pout at the offense that the omission seems to cause here. "You'll never make a proper succubus if you don't get the recipe right."

With that, Lyraelle leaps up to a nearby balcony above the alleyway, above the trembling ground and garbage below. Her fingers wrap around the bars of the wrought iron railing, her wings tucking behind her as she swings so that her body is facing diagonally down toward in a sideways crouch, clinging like a reptile. Her tail whips back and forth behind her like a cat stalking prey.

"If you want to find out what I really am..."

Suddenly, she pounces, twisting her body and stretching her heeled boot out toward Crock as she dives into the reverberating energy and aims for the source.

"You'll have to show me what you are, first!"

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle issues a challenge!!

[     \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Lyraelle         0/-------/---====|=======\=------\1            Crock

COMBATSYS: Crock endures Lyraelle's Diving Kick.

[     \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Lyraelle         0/-------/=======|=======\=======\1            Crock

[CROCK]
So itwas a challenge.

The cacophony was building more and more. The raw power, the raw strength was building. "Suck my BUS!" Crock snarls in the face of the pout. "You think some hooker in makeup and a whip is better than the real deal?" He wasn't convinced it -was- a demon. Just a woman. Just a woman, who was going up and up, higher and higher. The tail was moving. And the challenge is made. Show -her- what he really was? And she comes surging down, the punk fixes his feet, bracing his stance as the woman comes rioting in heel first. He doesn't dodge. He doesn't escape. He just takes it. "Okay, okay lady." Crock huffs, as he lets that heel go right into the skin. "Okay. Get in the saddle." He hangs his hand over the metal strings. "Lets ride."

And he drops the chord.

What comes first is the explosion of sonic energy from within, the full riff thrusting forward like a rocket to send Lyraelle towards the wall. If she can't escape, or if she gets airborne? Then he would keep strumming. Each strike bringing a cacophony of howling guitar sounds, the walls and ground tearing up with every note. Should Lyraelle have the misfortune, Crock would be trying to direct the barrage of sound and stone to smash her into the wall of the alleyway. From there? He would just keep the chords rattling, a hornet's nest of stone and brick shards whirling with the unlimited rock and roll strumming. The full assault would only come to a climax when the sound would just stop -dead-. And there, Crock would pause, the energy released. Sighing in esctasy. "You must be so jealous now..."

"That you only wish you can make me feel that good"

COMBATSYS: Crock knocks away Lyraelle with Empowered You're Harmful To Minors Mister Yuck.

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Lyraelle         2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\=====--\1            Crock

[LYRAELLE]
In the space between her heel driving into Crock and the impending release of energy, Lyraelle senses what's about to come. She takes a single sharp inhalation through her nostrils.

And suddenly she's slamming into the wall, pinned against the brick as the torrent of shards pepper her pale skin and purple wings. Cuts open across her body, and tiny holes are torn in the leather appendages that normally keep her aloft. She writhes against the assault, trying to break free of the barrage of brick and stone, but the wall of sound won't let her loose until it relents.

The Demon Queen drops to one knee on the alley floor, panting for breath, her eyes closed. Then, a second later, her eyes open wide, and the moment she seems to become aware of her stance she coils and quickly launches herself airborne, perhaps overcompensating in her eagerness to shift from a deferential posture to a domineering one.

"There's no need for me to be jealous of your power..."

Lyraelle licks her lips slowly, breathing heavily as she makes her assertion. The way that her infernal-green eyes fixate on the punk rocker suggests that her jealousy may be there, needless though it may be. Her wings snap outward, flinging what shards may remain inside them violently loose.

"...I'm sure I'll be able to put it to /much/ more impressive use!"

With that, the demoness twirls one hundred and eighty degrees, showing her unblemished side to the six-string warrior as she plants her feet and fingers against the brickwork of the building previously behind her. Then, turning her hips so that her posterior is pointed at her punk-rocking opponent, she pumps her arms and knees before pushing off hard from the solid surface.

And then she's flying, arse-first, at Crock, intent on smashing into him and pinning him beneath her backside in an attempt to assert her autocratic authority over the anarchist. If she succeeds, her tail will try and hook its way around one or both of the guitarist's arms - and then, the insidious appendage would start to sap at the musician's essence.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle successfully hits Crock with Royal Requisition - Dark Queen's Throne.

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////                          ]
Lyraelle         0/-------/<<<<<<<|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2            Crock

[CROCK]
Crock doesn't have enough time to recover from his bliss, when the woman is on him.

He doesn't notice the jealous twang. He was too far in himself as he released the pure power. But when she is on him, the flying peach -slams- him into the wall. He grunts in pain, as he is quickly brought down into a pin, the woman sitting on his chest. If he had fans that treated him like this, he might still be on tour. But when that tail comes around, he scrambles, trying to ge tthe guitar in the way. It's impossible; she's sitting between him and it. The tail drives in, hooking into him. And he feels it, all his magnificant energy being sucked away.

Something is wrong.

It might be because of Lyraelle's unique existence. It might be how she's descending on Crock. It might be the circumstance of time and space. But as Lyraelle lashes her tail, she gets the metaphorical surge of chi. Raw earth energy, drawing straight from Crock, from the planet... a smooth flow of his soul-substance mingled with it. It's rancid, earthy material. Like a particularly rotten potato.

But then the other thing comes in.

It isn't sonic energy. Well, it -should- be. It's not like the earth chi. Like -Crock's- chi. It's something else, sparks of incredible power that was releasing from Crock, and now flowing into Lyraelle. Lightning. It tasted of ozone, of thunder. It was food just the same. But it was something inhuman, immortal. Like preying on similar meat, than the energy of humans. It might be curious enough to serve as a distraction. Crock was spent, after all. But then, the sonic energy floods out, like the lightning force.

As Crock's eyes roll back in his head.

The energy was flowing up again. He was spent, drained. But he was going to end this. Blow this away. Sonic and earth energy was spiraling around him, desperately trying to fill the gap that Lyraelle left. It was like he lost too much blood. Teeth gritted, eyes back in his head, he howls out loud. "GIVE IT BACK TO ME, BABY!" Was the shriek from the punky brewster. He gropes down his bloodied hands. Not for the firm posterior, no. But the guitar, bringing them hard on the strings. As hard as he could from the angle. The energy swells up below.

And the alleyway explodes, into a blast wave of noise and stone shards, as the walls come crashing down.

COMBATSYS: Crock can no longer fight.

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Lyraelle         1/----<<</<<<<<<<|

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle blocks Crock's WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Lyraelle         1/--<<<<</<<<<<<<|

[LYRAELLE]
Straddling the literal rock musician's chest, Lyraelle tilts back her head, closing her own eyes and arching her back as her tail coils around Crock and drinks deeply. Stolen essence starts to flow through her, slowly at first, the cuts and tears in her flesh and wings mending. While neither the regal Demon Queen nor the youthful internet star would be so crass as to devour rancid root vegetables, the thing that is now feeding is neither of those; it is a literal fiend, with an endless desire to take what others have, to taste power and make it its own. The rotten flavour of the essence matters little to the beast - until it bites, metaphorically, into the live wire that the anarchist is tapped into.

The visible, physical effect on the pink-haired hell-maiden is much the same as if thousands of volts were running through her. Every muscle clenches reflexively, gloved fingertips digging into the ground, legs clamping tighter.

On an instinctual level, the young demoness knows that she is trying to consume something that she can't swallow.

And for the first time, the perpetual roleplayer feels that she is not herself.

At first, she can't stop. The essence is already in her metaphysical throat. Then, she realises that something is trying to take control, force her to keep drinking even as she starts to spiritually choke on ozone and thunder. She can hear a voice - feel a voice, really, like a thought that isn't hers:

'Don't stop.'

Lyraelle's eyes open again, lightning flashing behind the green irises.

"No...!"

It's a whimper that wants to be a scream. But she can't stop.

Then, mercifully, the alley explodes.

As the wave of energy erupts from beneath her, Lyraelle's wings wrap around her in a makeshift shelter. She clings tighter, holding on for dear life to avoid being blown free, tail and legs keeping her in place.

When the explosion dissipates, the buildings on either side of the alley are in ruins. For dozens of feet around, the ground has been levelled. In the middle of a ring of dust and flattened rubble, exposed, the demoness remains atop the punk rocker, covered in her leathery purple shell.

The wings slowly open, the muscles practically creaking as the succubus' form is revealed, relatively unscathed. The damage from below is slowly - or rather rapidly, for something mortal - healing. Her tail, still looped around Crock's arms, has gone limp and numb.

Sliding off of Crock onto her bottom, too overwhelmed to stand, Lyraelle pushes herself back with her heels and palms, away from the rocker.

"What... are you?" the demoness asks between slow, deep breaths.

It is a question turned inwardly as well as to Crock. She has some hope that she'll get an answer... and less that she'll get two.

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle exercises her royal prerogative of non-action.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Lyraelle         1/--=====/=======|

COMBATSYS: Lyraelle has ended the fight here.


[CROCK]
The energy releases, and Crock was alive.

Conscious, even. But as he lays there, he couldn't make any effort to attack. He knocked down the walls. But there it was, that succubus on his chest. Slowly, she gets off. They always did, slowly. But Crock was breathing hard. Guitar on his chest. Bricks... having been avoided, thanks to the demon lady -thing-. And she asks. She tasted it. Crock didn't understand anything. He barely understood what he was. It was too much thinking. So when she asks? He responds.

"What are you?"

Crock growls in his heap. He laughs a bit, and stops. The pain hurt too much. "What are any of us. Cockroaches picking on the concrete carcasses of a world gone sterile. Towers that breath poison, sewers that spit bile. People talk and talk and talk about making the world a better place. Cleaning it up. But it's just iron shod prisons in concrete jungles, little patches of green gelded and stuffed in boxes to make people feel better about themselves. And big men and women pat themselves on the backs, before they devour their cavier and schtup their mistresses as they feel like they've done something." He shudders. There it was. The spark of envy. The jealousy of a drop-out in everything, even in being a drop-out. But it was all muddled and concealed in that ball of wrath and destruction. "What am I?"

"I'm somebody who is making a difference."

"I'm not the chrysalis. I'm just a herald. I'm spreading the word, the doomsday. You think dressing up like some cosplay demon is gonna make a difference? You're like cut rate GWAR, no, you're just like everybody. Nobody's going to get away now." He groans, but there was a cold manic tone as he describes the madness. "You're going to be part of it. Everybody is going to be part of it, by the time I'm done. I want every, every person to be part of it. And when the time comes?" He swallows hard, a lump in his throat. Was that blood? "When the time comes? Every body will be a part of it." Crock shakes his head.

"And there won't be a single person left."

[LYRAELLE]
The whole while that Crock is railing against the sickness of modern society, Lyraelle sits on the asphalt, her green eyes staring from several feet away with rapt attention. Steadily, she pushes herself up, putting her knees under her, then her hands on her knees. Eventually, the tail behind her comes back to life, lifting up like a drunken serpent, a spasm running through its length.

Around the time that Crock swallows, Lyraelle leans forward, one gloved hand in front of the other as she starts to creep back across the alley floor like a cat on her hands and knees, her tail swaying behind her to match the aesthetic. Whatever confusion her expression may have betrayed before is locked away behind a bright-eyed smile as she leans over Crock from his side, her head turning to regard his face in feline fashion.

"You're a loser, aren't you?"

Strangely, the biting accusation seems entirely without malice - much as a cat might toy with prey, or its master.

"Trust me, I knooow the feels~" she says, her sing-song tone wistful, as if speaking of a hazy and distant past. "Honestly, I thought the urge to have my way with you was just a lingering instinct to clean up garbage. But this?"

The demoness makes a vague gesture with her right hand, encircling her face, horns, wings, and other assets.

"I'll let you in on a secret. This isn't a costume. This is me. This is what I was meant to be. I mean, test it for yourself if you want." She reaches up and taps one of her horns, her ears flattening a little as she does. Her eyes flit upward as she does, then back down to Crock.

"Something else is giving you power. Probably enough power to be what you want, just like me. So, how come you have all that power... and you're still acting like garbage?"

The demoness' head tilts again, her expression suggesting that she's genuinely curious - though it's difficult to tell whether it might just be a disguised attempt to goad him, toying again with wounded prey.

[CROCK]
And Crock was well wounded.

As Lyraelle slinks up to the battered punk, he felt caught between a night terror and a wet dream. Sensuality surging with predatory terror. He hasn't felt this way since that one time the dentist started flirting with him while on novacaine. Even her words were somewhere between inside and outside, the drugged out sensation only a battle of bloodlust could really create. When she says she is the real thing?

He believed it.

"So the devil's come to swallow my soul. Or spit it out, you tell me." Crock's attempts at bitter comedy might be self-satisfying under better conditions, but it was a particularly sadistic form of flaggulation right now. "What's it to you if I'm a loser. This power's nothing but a tool. I got a purpose, a real end goal now. A real direction. Clean, simple, and achievable. Total destruction. I'm more than just a loser. "I am garbage."

Crock was grinning mad. He was about to die, in a sense, but he seemed so pleased with where he was now. "Everything is garbage, even you. I can finally make it real. Look around you. That's what I can do. Piece by piece, brick by brick. It's only a start. But he told me that's all I need to do. I just need to be what I am, what I want, what I feel. Garbage to every man, woman, and child. I just break, and bust, and fight. And play my music. That's all he needs." Crock stops for a moment. And his voice changes. Far away from the snarl, and into a loose, southern drawl, hissing into a whisper.

"You weren't the first devil I've met, you know.

[LYRAELLE]
As Crock speaks, the demoness shifts her weight, her hips swinging closer to the fallen punk rocker's body. As she does so, her tail seems to get its own ideas, its spaded end creeping down and hovering near his leg. Lyraelle props her cheek up with a hand as she listens, surprisingly absorbed in what could surely only be blasphemy to the ears of a self-proclaimed Queen of all that she surveys. There's a slight twitch from the tail, and Lyraelle's eyes shift toward it before returning to Crock.

Why isn't she draining him? She knows what to expect, now. She can handle it.

"So, I'm here trying to build an empire, and you're here trying to break them all down."

He's trying to destroy everything she wants to own. Aligning their goals is impossible. He has a weapon; she has to take it away.

The tail starts to try and slither around Crock's thigh.

"And I'm not the first, but I could be the last~"

She should be. Where's her conviction?

"And yet, you're not begging for your life. Or apologizing. Or, better yet, swearing fealty to me, which is where this all began, really."

She wants it, that power. Straight from the vein of the planet.

The tail lunges - then, suddenly, starts to twitch uncontrollably. As if nothing were happening, the demoness pushes herself languidly up to her feet, planting her heels on either side of Crock's body and her hands on her waist. Her tail starts to thrash angrily behind her, but the succubus' face remains calm, even smiling.

"So, which is it going to be? Beg, apologize, or bow down?"

[CROCK]
Crock was helpless, and the woman's presence was smothering.

As that tail lashes around his leg, there wasn't... anything he could do. Just lie back, and let it happen. Unless.... unless all he has to do is beg. All he has to do is apologize. All he has to do is be the good little lap dog, and bow down. All he had to do is cash the checks on time. All he had to do is stop spitting on the fans. All he had to do is not throw a bottle at the security at every single venue. All he had to do is not break everything. That's all he had to do. He almost purrs, as he responds. "How about this."

"How about you bow down."

"How about you beg.

"And how about you apologize."

The writhing, suicidal defiance was what made Crock, Crock. And Crock continued to purr. He wasn't looking at her now. He was looking at the tail. How much it was moving. He nods knowingly. "Look at you. You're -hungry- for me." Crock nods his head down, past the guitar. "You want more of this. You've tasted it. You're desperate for it, and I can't blame you. It's incredible, isn't it. The rush of power that runs through your bones. That raw, natural feeling. That connection so deep, so intimate; and you have to sastify it, to sastify you. You can't... ever... stop. You have to keep sastifying it. Or it'll kill you. There is nothing to beg, nothing to apologize, nothing to bow down. You've tasted it. And there's no denying it now."

"It -owns- you"

Crock laughs now, a real laugh that is like fistfuls of nails in his chest. But it was just, that, funny. "You slipped your thing in the wrong pit of snakes. and now, you got yourself a fix you aren't going to fix yourself. Thousands of screaming, writhing snakes and serpents, coiling around your bones. So come on. You'll latch on. Don't you want it? You draw every inch of me dry. And then, all of me, is all of you. And then, and then, and then you'll be the next one. You'll never have to worry about owning yourself again. You'll be all his. His little... leather... muffin." Crock chokes, his body going limp. Everything tasted like iron. "Come on. Get on this. Get me over with. You want to be the last jag? Then ride me out. Be my personal anti-christ."

"And get ready to be the next big thing like me."

[LYRAELLE]
He's wrong.

It wouldn't own her. She would own /it./ She was strong enough to keep it in control.

The Demon Queen slinks down so that she's sitting on Crock's midsection again, pinning him to the alley floor. Her tail is agitated, flicking and writhing tantalizingly close to the punk rocker's body.

"You're very, very cheeky, you know that?"

Her tone is both coy and chastising at the same time. She lifts the index finger of her gloved right hand, wagging it back and forth as her other hand slips up Crock's chest.

This is good. This is what she needs. She's being a good girl.

"Vagrancy. Blasphemy. Treason. Impertinence. Oh, and destruction of property, I suppose."

The demoness' green eyes flick briefly to the rubble around them as she lifts her shoulders in a nonchalant shrug, before turning back down toward Crock. The index finger hovers ever closer to Crock's forehead. The serpentine tail trembles.

She's delaying. That's okay. She can take her time. Just...

"You're wrong, though." The tip of the finger ignites, glowing with burning green essence.

What's she doing?

"/Nobody/ owns me. I'm the Queen of fucking everything."

The smoldering fingertip presses against Crock's head - gently, just enough to leave her mark. A simple motion, and an L is burnt into Crock's forehead, just below the mohawk. To the rest of the world, he's branded a loser. He'll know better, though.

What an insolent bitch she is.

"Including you."

Drawing back her hand to admire her handiwork, Lyraelle tilts her head, raises her still smoking fingers into a V beside it, smiles, and winks. It's her usual sign of affection for the thousands of her 'minions' online; here, it takes on an obviously much more mocking tone.

She'll regret this.

"And now, I'll know where to find you, in case you're being bad again~"

The Demon Queen rises up to her feet, stretching and rolling out the kinks in her limbs, wings and shoulder. Her tail droops with resignation behind her.

"Be seeing you!"

She flutters her fingers easily, before launching up into the sky.

[CROCK]
It hurts.

The brand sears into his head, and he finally screams in agony. It was a good counter-point. Crock was helpless. This was how he was going to die. And yet... the last thing he sees of Lyraelle, is the V. Another brand on his mind. And then, as she works out the last of her kinks on herself, she suddenly... shoots up. A parting shot. An insult.

But he was still alive.

Crock waits a moment, as he gradually regains the ability to think through the agony. He brings up his hand the brand. He... felt he was looking kind of dumb, with his finger and his thumb, in the shape of an L, on his forehead. Everyone would know it. Everyone would see it. Another mark. Another mark. He brings his hand off his head, to his jean jacket vest. He pulls it aside, and touches inside. It's warm. A welt. It needed to breath. He pulls it open, as Lyraelle becomes just a distant nightmare. Not his first demon. Not his first brand.

A blood-red tattoo, of a snake, on his chest.

Log created on 11:18:52 04/13/2020 by Crock, and last modified on 15:10:23 04/15/2020.