Void Rift (rp) - Intermission

"Ooooh fuck yessss. Has she finally given the green light on killing them?" Shadow Stephanie asks, sounding excited to kill.


"U-Uhm, I-I can be your s-slave! I'll do anything you want, anything! J-Just, please don't kill me!" The wife begs, tears running down her face.

 

"Yes, but her mother seems... surprisingly out of the loop. I think her father may have done next to everything. Maybe you could mindread her for me to see if she knew about Stephanie's horrible conditions or not?"


Linoa thinks.
"Did your husband ever tell you about how he starved her, hired others to beat and rape her, and more?" She asks, a little merciful towards the wife.

 

"W-Well, not really. H-He was the one in charge of punishing Stephanie, I-I made sure my eldest son went to university, and my youngest son got good grades." The wife says.

 

"So, you had no idea she was in an unventilated room, bleeding and chained up despite being so skinny you could see her bones, behind an airtight iron door with enough locks to slow a dragon?" Linoa asks. "Because that's what your husband MADE STEPHANIE LIVE IN."
Linoa turns angrily to the husband.
"And you have the NERVE to act like she's the one at fault for running away? I can't believe she hasn't contracted a shadow or eldritch demon to tear you to bits in front of her and her friends!"

 

"Well, we always let her have free roam of the h-house and gardens for an hour!" The wife says, scared.

"She is the one at fault! She wouldn't be punished so much if she didn't misbehave!" The husband says.


"Sorry, I lost the connection there for a moment," Shadow Stephanie says, "So, should I go with a knife or a spiked club? I feel like I can do more with a knife, but a spiked club could break bones and cause bleeding with every hit."

 

"What do you define as misbehaving? Because you're running out of time before her shadow comes here to kill you both."
Linoa grins.
"Oh, did I say shadow? I'm sorry. I meant Shadow QUEEN Stephanie, because your daughter is so much more than you think." She scoffs, slapping the husband across the face with her tail.
"So, you're fucked, but your wife might be able to get out of this alive if the truth shows she isn't responsible for the SHIT your SORRY ASS PUT STEPHANIE THROUGH!" Linoa shouts.


"Talk to Xlentia about our practice room. We've got thousands of weapons and elemental variations on all of them. I was thinking you'd be more of a serrated chainblade kind of gal."

 

The husband laughs, "I don't believe in those fairytales. Stephanie was born to be a failure, and she's still nothing. Don't lie about 'Queens of Shadows'. Shadows are just projections caused by a lack of light! We did the world a failure by accepting the child not even her own parents wanted. If Stephanie is such a brilliant child, why didn't her parents want her, hmm?" The husband asks smugly.

"Uhm, I-I never had anything to do with Stephanie!" The wife says suddenly, trying to seem innocent.


"I think knife. Knife is good. So where are you?" Shadow Stephanie asks.

 

"Have you considered that some people aren't as rich as you? And, besides, I apparently need to remind you..."
Icy needles pin the husband's hands to the ground.
"THE ONLY QUESTION YOU GET TO ASK IS 'ARE YOU GOING TO KILL ME,' AND THAT ANSWER IS YOU BET YOUR ASS!" Linoa roars.


"Portal opens in three. For presentation's sake, I need you not to kill them immediately. And please, walk in as a Shadow copy of Stephanie. It's well lit in here, so I need you to remind this bastard that shadows are real. Also, his wife isn't too bad. Not responsible for punishing poor Steph, but it's not my thing to decide, just humbly ask you so you don't kill me too as I try to make things up for what happened with Xlentia."

 

The husband struggles, trying to free his hands.


"What? Stephanie's mother is a total bitch. Sure she was never too directly involved, but she was still pretty horrible to Stephanie. She basically told her that she was the reject child of the family, and that she'd not be recieving any help with school or education or anything from her. Plus, whenever she'd catch Stephanie outside her bedroom that wasn't in the one hour time period she had, she'd drag her back by her hair," Shadow Stephanie explains, "Shadow Aj's been teaching Stephanie a lot. He's basically become her personal home school teacher in all subjects."

 

He can't. The ice crystals grow to freeze his hands to the ground.

A portal opens in front of them.
"Time for you to pay for your sins, missus 'I did nothing except tell her she was never wanted and dragged her back to her heavily reinforced room when she wasn't in it by her hair." Linoa taunts, punching the wife in the gut.


"Point taken. Remember, walk in looking like Stephanie. And... maybe make her death quicker than his? Show a little mercy for the lesser crime?" Linoa asks, a portal opening in front of Shadow Stephanie.

 

The wife clutches her gut in pain, falling onto her side.


Shadow Stephanie walks through, looking like she usually does, which is to say, like Stephanie.

"Oh boy, I've been waiting for this for a long time." Shadow Stephanie says gleefully, noticing the pair.

"W-Who the hell are you?" The husband asks, confused.

"Your end." Shadow Stephanie says, walking over to the wife and grabbing her, before throwing her down in front of the husband. Shadow Stephanie sits on the wife's lap, forcing her to lay down with a hand on her shoulder.

"This is your wife, no? Woman you love so much you married her?" Shadow Stephanie asks, her signature dagger appearing in her hand.

"Y-Yes." The husband says nervously.

"We've been m-married 36 years." The wife says fearfully.

"Aw, how loving. You know, the heart is often said to be the organ of love. Why don't we show your husband yours?" Shadow Stephanie says, plunging her dagger into the wife's chest, causing her to scream in pain. Shadow Stephanie cuts the wife open, the wife screaming in torment as she rips the wife's torso open, revealing her organs. Shadow Stephanie's hand seems to have connected to the wife, presumably keeping her conscious.

Shadow Stephanie rips out the wife's heart, a third hand emerging from Shadow Stephanie's chest which places itself where her heart was, turning into a new heart. The wife screams in pain, tears streaming down her face.

"Ah, here we are. Now, bon appetit!" Shadow Stephanie says, before shoving the wife's heart into the husbands mouth. The husband spits it out, before throwing up in disgust.

"Sick of your wife's love? Don't worry, I have just the solution." Shadow Stephanie says, before jamming her dagger into the wife's throat and removing her hands. The wife chokes to death on her own blood, which spills out of her open torso.

"NO! T-THIS HAS TO BE SOME KIND OF N-NIGHTMARE!" The husband says, shocked to see his wife dead.

"This ain't a nightmare, friend," Shadow Stephanie says, pulling the husband's head up to look at her as she slowly inserts her dagger into his neck, "This, this is karma."

Shadow Stephanie jams her dagger into the husbands throat, before shoving her arm in the open wound. The husband lets out garbled screams of torment as Shadow Stephanie cuts apart his insides through his throat, before Shadow Stephanie pulls her arm back through, the force of which ripping the husbands head off.

 

Linoa seems to be sitting on her staff, grinning big.
"I must say, I've only heard of your work in the past, but it's infinitely more satisfying in person!" She compliments, Muffy teleporting in to lap up the blood.

 

"Eh, I just do whatever to make the people die and it works," Shadow Stephanie says, taking out some of the wife's organs and juggling them idly, "I was going to get Stephanie to burn down her house with these two assholes inside when she first summoned me, but she said she was too far from home. We burned down a random house anyway though. Fun times."

 

Muffy's tongue grabs one of the airborne organs as Shadow Stephanie juggles.
"See, I got enlisted because I artillery'd city hall. Your life sounds hella fun." Linoa laughs. "Pretty sure Rineth's the only thing keeping me together, though."

 

"Sometimes the key to happiness is just not giving a fuck," Shadow Stephanie says bluntly, "Who cares if people come to try and stop me if I kill some random guy. They can't stop me, so why should I care?"

"Though, we do need to care about some things in our lives." Shadow Stephanie says wistfully.

 

"That's what I thought at first. Ended up being apprehended by gods. Thought I could fight 'em off, but when they whisk you into their domain, there's only so much you can do."
She pauses.
"No offence, but you don't seem at all like the caring type. King takes most of the paperwork, doesn't he?"

 

"We share it, actually. We're both especially lazy when it comes to doing the paperwork. It's sort of a mutual understanding of how much the paperwork sucks." Shadow Stephanie says.

"Oh, and you need to know your limits. Sure I can kill a random guy and get away with it, but I wouldn't try to fight someone like Tenebrae or Lux. Sure it's nice to have a power trip, but there's also rewards to just being nice to your gods instead of trying to fight them to show off." Shadow Stephanie adds.

 

"Yeah, I'll say. I got lucky enough to be taken under Xlentia's wing. Meeting Ruby was probably the best thing that happened to me, but I hear she was pretty nasty to you and your friends. I almost hate to say it, but hearing that from my husband felt like betrayal." She sighs.

 

"Eh, she was alright. If Aj reversed time and risked a paradox just to bring her back to life, she can't be that bad." Shadow Stephanie says casually.

 

"Crystal?"
"Yeah what?"
"Do you recognize them?"
Crystal takes a look at the draconian I reference, while I take a better look myself.