Ew, Get Away... Creep. (Ana)

[Brisinger987]

As if by magic, the surroundings seemed to change, and somehow, Arimus was stood in front of them, and the were in his private medical bay.

"You fools..."

[Anadwen]

Tsuruki's eyes ran up to Arimus only slowly. What the... How did he...

He opened his mouth to speak, but not a sound came out. He couldn't amount to more than sink even a little further to the ground.
"My... Apologies." he muttered.

How could he explain something like that? That a creature could take all three of them - not counting Marake - and hurt them so bad with little to no effort... It was all that f***er Seluku's fault, he had to mess with that thing...

[Brisinger987]

"Your apologies are worthless, as usual Tsuruki. You all tried to fight something beyond your own comprehension, and you nearly made Marake break the Libra. We are leaving port in 4 hours." Arimus stared at them, the symbols in his eyes glowing brightly. He stood tall, and regal, and his very presence was pure malice.

"And trust me. Whatever you fought, is nothing compared to what I can show you. I keep a nice collection of things that you would find frightening. So, if you don't want to meet K'hoth, I recommend that none of you fuck up again. Especially you Tsuruki. Next time, you will apologise to the maw of K'hoth."

[Anadwen]

"It wasn't... Even my fault! Seluku provoked it! I didn't do anything wrong!" he attempted to defend himself, and tried to stand up, but fell back to his knees an elbows.

What a pathetic display I'm putting up...

He growled, forcing himself up. Laying on the ground wouldn't help at all...

[Brisinger987]

"You are at fault. It should not matter what others do. You were not strong enough to deal with it regardless." Arimus' eyes settled on a symbol, and he began healing Tsuruki's arm.

"And you are useless to me if you are injured." Arimus snarled, and from the back of the room, a loud, low roar emanated.

"K'HOTH. QUIET."

[Anadwen]

Avoiding Arimus' eyes, Tsuruki let him take care of what he had left of his arm, but he knew far too well that without having at least the bone of the rest, he couldn't regrow it. He picked that other part up, and tilted his head to the side to see Seluku.

"You retarded bastard. Take this to the tech department and see of they can return it to normal. I'll force it up your ass if you attempt anything, so don't even think..." he growled at him, carefully handing him the disintegrated arm.

[Brisinger987]

Seluku wasn't with them. Seluku was elsewhere, undesired by Arimus. He had been sent to the mecha wing while Marake, Mirike and Tsuruki were present in the medbay.

"Seluku is not here right now. I will analyse it personally." Arimus' eyes changed symbol again, and with a sickening crunch, Tsuruki's arm began to regenerate rapidly, forming new bone and muscle quicker than any natural regeneration.

"Now then, tell me about what you fought."

[Anadwen]

Tsuruki's eyes widened at the sudden pain. If losing an arm hurt, regrowing it anew was agony. He just had to... Clench his teeth and endure it as long as it lasted. But at least he didn't have to worry... If he didn't have to cut it off before, he wouldn't have a problem regenerating - the skin on his shoulder which got burned by one of his opponent's blasts was already healing fast.

His opponent...

"I don't have a single f***ing clue. It looked human at first, then Seluku provoked it. It transformed and survived even Marake's attacks."

[Brisinger987]

"I saw what happened, idiot. Tell me the subtleties you noticed. It's presence. It's mood. It's processes." Arimus finished healing, and then returned to his throne, waiting for what had just turned into a debrief.

"Consider this an official debriefing now."

[Anadwen]

"I'm not an-" he was ready to get defensive and lash out, but only then remembered who is he actually talking to. This wasn't Seluku, but Arimus...

"Fine then. It changed form into something white and grew horns. At first, it kept shouting at us to leave it alone... Then it attacked. It punched through a wall like it was nothing. It grabbed one of Mirike's vectors and caught my punch with its bare hand... I wasn't even holding back then. And whatever it touched started breaking down immediately. I... It was some sick kind of monster."

To be defeated...

...It was just a boy, right? A random teen. How naive.

[Brisinger987]

"You say it grabbed one of Mirike's vectors?" Arimus' eyes grew wild with something between delight and fear, and he leaned forwards.

"So, what was it's presence like? Describe it to me." Arimus leaned back, and a single, heavy footstep resounded with a loud thud, and a dark presence dimmed all light in the room very slightly, and Arimus smiled.

"Don't mind that sound."

[Anadwen]

Tsuruki has been almost too busy stretching and testing the regrown arm to hear the question. Only in the last moment he realised that he was asked something...

"Presence? The f*** am I supposed to-" he snapped back, but the words eventually faded out. He better make Arimus satisfied... If he wanted to live...

"Dark. But not like a demon. It was insanely strong, but it didn't even feel like that thing was alive. Like spirits, or spirit hunters."

[Brisinger987]

Another thud resounded, louder this time, and closer, and the light had dimmed further, only half as bright now.

"Tell me how similar that presence is to this one." Arimus stood up, heading to the door.

"Now, K'hoth. Don't kill him." Arimus left the room, locking the door behind him, and heading to the camera room, watching the lights get dimmer and dimmer as K'hoth approached Tsuruki, his aura getting exponentially stronger.

"K'hoth... Hungry... Feed..."

[Anadwen]

Although instinctively backing up, Tsuruki shook his head. "Nothing like it. That thing was clever. Clever and brutal... It was glad to see us suffering, but didn't let on more. I couldn't read in it. This thing is just hungry. And... It was stronger. In a sense, the presence was cold. Dead. This thing is disturbingly alive, although it craves death, that one was cold and didn't let anything on..."

Quickly squeeze out as much nonsense as possible... It were just observations he quickly made - thus, mostly unimportant crap.

But if it could save his neck, he'd do anything.

[Brisinger987]

K'hoth stepped from the shadows, his teeth bared, blood dripping from his huge maw.

"Tell me more Tsuruki, and K'hoth will leave you alone..." Arimus called over microphone.

Blood and Viscera bolted from the shadows, screeching at the top of their lungs as K'hoth made his slow, terrifying advance towards Tsuruki.

"K'hoth feed... Feed... Fooodddd... Hungeerrrr... Paiiiinnnn."

[Anadwen]

With a few more steps back, Tsuruki kept talking. "At first, it looked like an ordinary human boy. Then, Seluku used his mind torture. It looked like it's in pain, and then started changing. It went white and started attacking... It had horns and yellow eyes. The attacks of it were also weird... It was using its energy to shoot it around..."

[Brisinger987]

"You tell me things I already know Tsuruki... Things I saw when I watched the attack. I have no desire to know those things. In fact, I have no desire to keep you alive if you continue to prove this useless to me." K'hoth's advance stopped, and the creature let out a low growl, standing it's ground.

"Remember that next time you decide to fail me. K'hoth is ALWAYS hungry." Arimus unlocked the door, knowing that K'hoth wouldn't go through while the control collar was on.

[Anadwen]

"It was like that mad Adachi woman." Tsuruki muttered, further backing up in caution as he analyzed the creature that Arimus called K'hoth. It looked dangerous, but simple-minded...

"Something between Marake and that Adachi woman with fangs..."

Sen Ryuu. Tsuruki only got to perceive her once from a distance, when he was still young, but he remembered the monstrous, omnious aura of bloodthirst that simply streamed from her.

Could that thing be...? No, there was no chance of that.

[Brisinger987]

K'hoth's subtle auras warped and changed, and it shifted to the one it could sense Tsuruki imagining. That of something that only desired bloodshed and death. Something that was aeons old, and had seen extinction more times than any god. It was ancient beyond belief, and powerful.

K'hoth growled, and his mouth began to open.

"FFEEEEEDDDDD...." It spoke, and it began to corner Tsuruki, it's gaping maw revealing it's dark, black, empty insides.

"K'hoth, enough. He doesn't know anymore. His senses are too blunt, to imperfect to sense the subtleties I need to know."

[Anadwen]

"What else am I supposed to tell you?" Tsuruki burst out angrily, his glance flashing from Arimus to K'hoth and back. This beast... It was unnerving. What was this thing?

"What we fought acted too fast to analyze the movements. I don't know what it used, but it wasn't like... Normal magic..." He leaned back to get away from that gaping maw, and with slow steps shifted to the side, keeping eyes on the beast. "It was really like that Adachi woman and whatever those f***ers are using and calling 'spells', but... Darker. Like a spirit. It wasn't dumb like this thing here... You could literally sense it wants to rip you apart and see you writhe and suffer, like if it was feeding on the pain and blood, but you couldn't calculate its movements... I don't think it attacked us because it had something against us. We just happened to provoke it and be near."

He had to pull the slightest, smallest details out of his mind... Damn it.

"Just as well it would have attacked anything, I think. It just wanted to kill and feast on death."