Deal With The Devil [Rosemary]

Rosemary has 50,906 PL and her Dark Nimbus.

The work of a leader just never seemed to end. As soon as she finished looking over the documents placed in front of her, she had been asked to look over the training of a new elite squadron. When that was finished, there were updated maps to confirm the validity of. Then the pirates and mercenaries that had to be dealt with. More documents. More talking. More everything, it seemed.

How was a queen supposed to keep her throne if there was never any time to train, anyways? At this point, she'd be happy just to get a chance to blow off some steam...

No sooner than she had thought that, Rosemary heard the sounds of fighting coming from outside her throne room. With a furrowed brow and an exasperated sigh, she lazily shooed the few people she had been speaking with further back into the room. Her eyes glowed a deep and menacing red, and... She laughed. Oh good lord, she laughed. What was even happening today?

When Virus did finally enter the grand room, it was to the sight of the queen seated atop her throne. In distinct clash with his insectoid and monstrous appearance, the hybrid was dressed splendidly and befitting of her title: her red and form fitting battle armor with its pleated skirt resting over her usual sleeveless spandex underclothes. A red cape hung from one shoulder, draped over the side of her throne, and a black wrist guard rest high up on each forearm. A gold band adorned each bicep and one thigh, joined by a matching necklace and rings that were worn along her tail at odd intervals. Then, there was the crown atop her head.

"You have two seconds to explain yourself." Just as she spoke, her telepathic voice assaulted the creature's mind and carried into it the anger she felt bubbling just underneath the surface. Though she could plainly see the spirits of her royal guard still alive in the hallway behind the creature, it irritated her both that he would break in this way and that they would be so weak to be defeated so quickly. None of them had even attempted to transform into the mighty Oozaru.

As it would explain, her glowing eyes peered into the creature's very soul itself. It was difficult to make out at a glance, but she had seen something similar to this before: a most unnatural, artificial soul wrapped in the body of a mortal made from so many pieces. In small amounts, she could catch glimpses of something from the next world before it quickly disappeared again, but that wasn't what caught her intention so easily. Inside of this thing was... Saiyan; not just one, but many.

Just what was it, or what had it done to corrupt and mangle its own soul this way? Even the Tuffle creation wasn't like this...

Rosemary uses Dark Whispers to speak telepathically and attempt to intimidate Virus, instilling her rage into his mind in the process. The effect of this is up to the player. In addition, she uses Devil's Sight to try and deduce exactly what he is, but is only finding confusion and concern.

The queen cocked her brow at the creature, which stood in what she could almost call reverence at the end of the room. It was the small details that gave her pause, such as the subtle change in its breathing as it'd stepped further into the room. Of course, its smile couldn't be called anything but disturbing at a first glance, but these subtleties were extraordinarily useful at times like these. Then it spoke... And it was bizarrely polite towards her.

"Huh." She breathed in a small show of amusement. To be honest, after the past few days of racists and their ilk shouting every insult she'd ever heard in her lifetime and more over and over again at her, this was a very refreshing change of pace. Of course, she wasn't exactly irritated at the slight stroking of her ego, either. This was the kind of respect people should be showing her, after all!

"Well, it's not every day that someone comes looking to join our army. It's usually been a captain or recruit who's got it in their head they can beat me and "retake the pride of Sadala"." Rosemary chuckled, and near instantly relieved the tension from the room. Maybe it was the strength of the creature (enough to take notice, but not so much to concern herself), but she was finding herself willing to humor this request. "I'm listening. Why do you want to join us?"

She hummed in thought while the creature explained himself to her. Her smile cracked and bared a few inhumanly sharp teeth at his mention of living for combat, as though that made him any different from the Saiyans in this very room, but it was the next piece of information that gave her pause. He consumed those he'd beaten in a fight? Her eyes looked over him carefully once again, and a serious and dour expression colored her face.

"You say you grow stronger by consuming the victims you've beaten in a fight?" Rosemary repeated what he'd told her to make sure she had heard him correctly, though her body language spoke loudly enough that she was not confused about this. Her brow furrowed as her glowing eyes continued to narrow against the creature's body. She could never be sure, but she had to know... "How many Saiyans have you eaten since arriving on my planet?"

The accusation was brief, yet succinct. As soon as the words had begun to come from her mouth, a thin and steady stream of dark smoke rose from the corner and into the air overhead. She had never met a creature quite like this one before, no, but she knew the souls of mortals well by this point. His was mangled beyond any sense of repair, and her worse instincts were telling her that he'd admitted to something far darker...

Rosemary's heart beat strongly in her chest as she listened further to the creature's explanation. Her anger grew unabated as he again admitted to killing six of her citizens, then eating the remains in order to grow stronger. Maybe she would have looked at it in a different light if it were anyone else, but the thought of her people being consumed by this creature infuriated her. Enraged her. The smoke rising from her lip only grew darker and more sinister with every breath.

She didn't quite know why, but when he'd mentioned the Tuffle, something within her snapped.

The queen vanished from her seat upon the throne, though unlike her usual trick of disappearing into a cloud of smoke. In her anger, her movements were not magic but sheer, unadulterated speed with which she approached the creature. Her fist raised, clenched into a ball so tight she might break the skin of her own palm, and she swung it down at the creature's face with every intention to leave him a broken mess on the stone floor.

But, she did not move after that. She had no need to, after all. Her eyes burned furiously, boring their way into the creature's very soul as they shone with a menacing red. "I have no need of you disrupting the plans I'm working so hard to carry out. Now, get out of my sight, before I kill you myself." Her tail lashed angrily behind her as she spoke. "If I hear of you harming my people again, be certain that I will find you. Whether it's in this world or the next, there will be nowhere to run and hide."

As she leered at the creature, her heart beat slowly but loudly from within her. It was so loud as to almost be deafening, as it bounced from the stone walls of the room and surrounded the pair in noise just the same as the smoke was encircling them.

In her rage, Rosemary uses Makyo Mastery to gain the Makyoozaru's (x5) power without physically transforming. She punches Virus with a basic melee attack.

PL: 50,906 --> 254,530

Her breaths came in slow, heavy huffs. Each one sent another thick cloud of smoke from her lips to rise and join the rest of its mass in the air. Her tail twitched nervously as her hands wrung tightly against themselves. She was seeing what was happening in front of her...

But she didn't believe it.

How could she? The creature that had come into her court was many things, but above all else, he was supposed to be mortal. She had caved in his entire head. He had been reduced to a bloody smear on the floor by her immense strength. Yet, his soul still occupied this world, and his heart beat strongly to carry life nourishing blood to the wound. This was nothing like her own power. This was...

This was simply evil.

So, the queen put on her act, and acted the part of the overwhelming power that would drive this creature from her lands. It was all she could think to do in the moment, and the rage still boiling in her blood was hardly one to object. She merely watched as the creature literally pieced itself back together, and scowled as it made its threat.

"First Arcose, and now a monster..." Rosemary's voice shook with everything she'd just witnessed. The creature was gone, but she still had yet to quell her true and terrible might. Her mind was too busy racing with the possibilities, and with the consequences if she didn't act immediately. Oh, why couldn't she have just agreed and gotten it on her side?

No! She was many things, opportunistic among them, but that would have been crossing the line. There is no good in all that she'd done and what she was going to do if she harbored creatures that murdered and consumed her people in the process.

"Put out an alert to all active soldiers: the creature called Virus is to be avoided, or driven from populated areas if possible. Noone with less than forty-thousand battle power is to approach it for a fight. Until we know more, it's as good as immortal, and it eats people to grow stronger." She spoke aloud, but the Saiyans standing behind her deigned to move or react. Likely, they were still frozen in shock and fear of what had just happened. "DO IT NOW!" Her shout solved that small problem.

Rosemary exits. Thread Ends.