[ Graduation Dungeon ] (Roch) FIN!

[Ice Queen]

Quote:

4. Prompt - What Doesn't Kill You
You step into a room. It's a bare, plain room. By the time you reach the middle it warps and shifts, and you are left facing your greatest fear. What is it and how do you deal with it?

He would have been cursing if he wasn't gagged. As it was he let out a grunt as he landed on the ground and muttered something nasty about gnomes before looking up at the door and the banner. Oh. So it was finally jackin' time. Roch hopped to his feet and summoned his guitar, stepping up to the door and staring at it for a long, long moment.

Once he went through this door, he wouldn't be coming back out as a student. He'd be free of this place, never have to come back if he didn't want to. Walk away, don't look back, just as he had with his old neighborhood. It was no wonder a little grin was pulling at his lips as he pulled the door open.

The room was bare. He blinked in confusion, looking around, even spinning around as he got a few steps in--then the room warped all around him, making him feel sick to his stomach. He was still reeling as he started forward and promptly ran into a glass wall. For a second he stared at it, a sickening twist of dread in his gut as he took in the curve of glass, took in the sight of people in white moving on the other side. He was back in the tube. The changing tube.

The gnomes... they'd delivered him up to the hunters? He knew they were dirty little bastages that liked to make a profit, but he'd never thought they were this nasty!

"Hey!" he shouted, trying to get the hunters' attentions. "HEY!" he bellowed, slamming his fist into the glass. "LET ME OUT!"

"The subject doesn't seem to be cooperating," he heard one say, as if discussing a reluctant minipet. "I doubt he'll be useful."

"Well, one less is still one less," another says. They're carrying weapons. Weapons that look similar to the weapon that Edel had turned into in the horsemen trials--wait. "Wait," Roch said. "This isn't real. It's one of those tricks, right? This is graduation--"

There's a light over his head, it flashes, and gas starts to fill the tube that he's standing in. "Wait--WAIT!" he cried, gasping and grabbing his throat as the gast reaches him. He could feel his eyes start to water and he looked around, looking for anything or anyone that can help him. Except all he sees is Danny writhing in pain in the tube next to him--then shifting, changing into a weapon.

He heard his father shouting in pain and he turned, looking at a tube behind him just as the older reaper starts to change as well, twisting into a weapon. Then he heard his sister--

His mind cracks and he summons his guitar, forgetting that he can't do that. It shattered the glass with a heavy hit and he jumped out, slamming the body into the nearest hunter before making a break for it. He raced down the hall, the same hall that he had gotten caught in in the trials, and reached the door, grabbing the handle and yanking it open.

As he stepped out he found himself face to face with his grandfather. "Gramps!" he says. "Gramps, they're--"

"Who let you escape?" Vegas asks, fingering his cigar. "SECURITY!"

It was too much for Roch. He took off running, racing for the next door he saw and slamming through it.  

[Ice Queen]

Quote:

3. Prompt - Forged Anew
You step into a room. Except it now isn't a room anymore. You realize quite quickly that you are now a Hunter's Weapon. What kind of weapon are you? Who is the human you're with? What is your relationship? And oh, look -- your human appears to be fighting against someone you recognize. You don't remember their name. But there's something about them that sparks... something within you. Is it joy? Sadness? Hatred? You... You don't quite know why you're feeling it, but you can't deny the feeling is there.

All he'd done was step through a door. He couldn't remember the change, but he knew what had happened. He couldn't move. He could feel himself moving, but he couldn't move. "Roch?" someone asked. "Roch, wake up, already!"

"What?" Roch demanded, suddenly wondering why he'd even been wondering. "Jackin' hell, Trent, if you're going to swing me, at least AIM first. You've got no rhythm. How in the hell can I fight with a guy that's got no rhythm?"

A laugh came from his hunter. The big blonde boy never took him seriously when he said that. Instead he changed his grip on Roch's handle, bringing up the vicious looking battle axe in a hold that Roch had taught him, himself. "Now start again, one, two, one two three," Roch counted off as they started into battle.

At first it felt good. He could feel the FEAR rushing through him as they attacked, going from one opponent to the next--then something seemed off. He felt his edge hitting flesh, saw the monster in front of them--he knew this monster... maybe. It seemed like the world blurred slightly as his hunter took another swing at the boil, seemed like something in the back of his mind wanted to protest--

Why?

"Roch?" Trent asked. "Roch, where'd you go?" he demanded. "We're in the middle of the fight!"

"I know! I--I know!" Roch replied, trying to shake off the sick feeling that he had. Something was wrong. Something just seemed so wrong about hitting this boil. Like...

Like he knew him. It made him feel dirty as his edge slashed flesh. It made him hurt, and he didn't know why.

"Stop!" he said. Trent stopped mid-swing, holding him in the air and waiting for an explanation. They were buds. Best friends, even. But something like this had never happened before. "Just--just find another opponent. Please," he begged. "Not this one."

"Why?" Trent asked.

"I can't remember," he admitted. Trent didn't ask, just turned, attacking a different creature. He let out a curse as he was attacked from behind and glanced back, looking at the boil. But he didn't attack back.

Roch felt like a real b*****d.  

[Ice Queen]

Quote:

1. Prompt - A Letter To My Future Self --
You step into a room. Except it now isn't a room anymore. A quick look down at yourself reveals that you've changed. You know that you're still you, and part of you realizes that you are your future self. Describe a day in the life of your future self, the future that you see your character in.

One second he was a weapon, the next he was stepping through another door. For a moment Roch didn't know what was going on. He had legs again, arms, he could feel his guitar hanging across his back, and he was... where was he?

He looked down, taking in the long, dark purple trench that he wore--sleeveless, of course, the ragged, zipper covered pants, the boots. What, exactly--

"Hey! If you're going to play already, play!" a man in the back of the dingy room called. "I ain't payin' you to look pretty!" The man was a bartender, cleaning a nasty looking cup with a nastier looking cloth. "Get to playin!"

So he was playing a dive for some spare cash... Roch nodded, slinging his guitar over his shoulder and starting to tune it. "Hey," he said, leaning to the mic, "what city am I in?"

"Cruelopolis!" one of the drunks in front of him called out.

"Thanks," Roch said, launching into a tune. A part of him was back to realizing what was going on. This was his graduation trial, so this was some sort of preview of his future or something? Hell if he knew, but it wasn't that bad. He played a few songs, then hopped off the stage, heading for the bar. "Can I get a beer?" he asked.

A dirty looking beer slid down the counter and he grabbed it, downing it happily. He had no idea where Cruelopolis was. He had no idea how long he'd been there, either, but somehow he got the feeling that would happen a lot--

He stopped as his phone rang, and reached into his pocket, pulling it out and looking at it blankly for a long moment. After a second he answered. "Yeah?"

"You owe me money, Roch," a growling voice called over the phone.

"It's in the mail," Roch said, hanging up. He slipped the phone back in his pocket, only to stop as he felt a piece of paper folded up. He pulled it out, staring at it blankly for a moment. There was a list on the paper, along with a map to the nearest portal to the human world. He flipped it over, looking at another map that had his handwriting across the top. It said "Targets."

Oh. So he was still working as a trick or treater? Yeah, this made sense. He wondered when the last time he saw his family was. It'd probably been a while. He pulled his phone out, calling his sister.

"Hola!" she said cheerfully. "Roch! It has been forever since you last called!"

"How's it going, Terra?" he asked, leaning against the bar.

"Oye, you've got five minutes," the bartender snapped.

"Oh, it is fine! Your son is waiting for your return!"

Son? He almost had a heart attack. "Er... that's... good? How is--"

"Cisco! Come say hello to your padre!"

"I--I'll have to call back," Roch stuttered as the bartender snarled at him. "Take good care of... um... the kid," he finished, hanging up.

What in the hell had he done to wind up like this? Maybe he shouldn't have taken to dating around, after all.  

[Ice Queen]

done this, rolling again  

[Ice Queen]

Quote:

2. Prompt - In Their Shoes Now
You step into a room. Except it now isn't a room anymore. It's now a classroom, and the students within it are staring at you in a mixture of interest, disinterest, boredom, and several of them are doing a rather poor job at attempting to hide their skellyphones as they text one another beneath their desks. It suddenly occurs you that you are now a professor. What subject are you teaching? How are you teaching it?

Another door. When was this damn thing going to be over? Roch stepped forward, shaking off the idea of having a kid somewhere--it was too disturbing to think about. And... he found himself face to face with a class of kids that were... well that one was definitely staring at him, he thought, looking at a particularly disturbing boil in the front. Roch looked behind him, staring at the board on the wall with horror.

His name was written in chalk. That meant... he was teaching? He looked down, taking in the suit with an expression of horror. A teacher? Seriously? "Um..."

"Are you really going to teach us breaking and entering?" the eager student asked, waving his hand in the air over his head.

"I am?" Roch said blankly. "They let me TEACH that?" he asked after a moment.

"For the human world, duh," a teenage ghoul said, looking bored. "But I bet you suck at it. Why else would you be a teacher?"

"Yeah, sure," Roch said, not really listening. Seriously, teaching a bunch of brats how to b&e-- "Well first off, uh... how's your lock picking skills?" he asked, heading for the cardboard box and digging through it. He had no idea what he was doing, but hey, he was pretty sure that the professors he had had no clue what they were doing, either!

"Like, that's seriously boring," the ghoul said. "Can't we do something more entertain--"

Roch pulled out a metal capsule the size of a large chicken egg, looking at it with a grin. "Here we go. One locked bomb--ah, for each of you! I would unlock it quick, otherwise the jacker's likely t'go off," he added, tossing the egg to the ghoul. "And who KNOWS what sort of nasty s**t I came up with?" he asked with an evil grin.

"Wait, what?" one of the kids asked, finally looking up from their texting.

"Either unlock the egg or it'll blow up," Roch said. "You gotta work fast when you're breaking and entering, y'know? The boogies ain't that slow. Neither are the humans."

BAM!

"Forget your lock picks, kid?" Roch called to the now-glowing boil in the back. "Don't worry, the glow will wear off... eventually."
***  

[Ice Queen]

Quote:

5. Prompt - Everything You Ever Wanted
You step into a room. It's a bare, plain room. By the time you reach the middle it warps and shifts, and you are left facing your greatest desire. What is it and how do you deal with it?

The class thing had been a little entertaining--well, until the boogies had knocked on the door, then Roch had ran out the window, only to step out a door and into another empty room. For a long moment he stood there. Then he smelled it.

Stepping forward, he found himself staring at a mountain of food. Every single piece of food he could ever dream about was accounted for in front of him. He swallowed, then wiped a trail of drool off of his chin. But... he really didn't want to explode, right? So he would just take this burger...

And that barbecue batwing platter... and that croka cola, and that cupcake--and that one, that one, that one too--

DUDE, SMOOTHIE FOUNTAIN! The punk boil raced over, leaning over backwards and opening his mouth to let the smoothie run freely down his throat. This was AWESOME!

He was feeling a little full...

Images of his body exploding, his core rupturing, his mind--wait--

"EYE SCREAM HEADACHE!!" he bellowed, grabbing his temples with both hands and floundering around wildly. "Jackin' PAIN!" He fell over into a pile of food, just sitting there as he waited for the headache to pass. "Note to self, smoothie fountains are EVIL."

Probably time to find another door, he decided as he stumbled to his feet, walked right past a line up of sexy females, and out the door, not even noticing they were there.

"Seriously?" one demanded irritably as the door closed behind him. "I even SHAVED for this!"  

[Ice Queen]

The Boss Room

Roch stepped into the final room, flicking a bit of food off of his shoulder and looking around. Circular room, giant green knight, and most importantly--his diploma! He stared at it for a moment, finally seeing the end of the tunnel in front of him, practically tasting the freedom that came with it.

"HALT. YOU SHALL NOT PASS."

Yeeeeah, it sort of figured, Roch thought with a sigh of frustration as he summoned his guitar. It would never turn out EASY with this school. EVER. He shadowstepped forward and slammed the body of his guitar into the giant green guy.

Well, he was getting bored, anyway, he decided.

Roch's HP: 45/50
Attacks hit: 1
Attacks Missed:  

[Ice Queen]

Roch took a hit, shoving him back from the creature, then raced forward again to try and get another hit. His guitar struck the beast, not as hard as the first time, but still solidly. The hit he got in return sent him back once again, just long enough to adjust his hold on the guitar for his next swing.

Roch's HP: 40/50
Attacks hit: 2
Attacks Missed:  

[Ice Queen]

A twist of the waist and Roch slammed his guitar into the green knight's side, repeating the last hit.

Roch's HP: 35/50
Attacks hit: 3
Attacks Missed:  

[Ice Queen]

Then Roch pulled his guitar strap over his shoulder, struck a pose, and used his most powerful FEAR attack to hit the beast in front of him. The sound slammed through the room, hit the green knight and sent him flying backwards so he smashed into the wall behind him before dissipating entirely.

"Jack dammit, you better not have missed up my diploma," Roch said as he crossed the room and picked the diploma up. Sure, he'd done something totally badass just there, but there'd been nobody to SEE it, so who cared? What really mattered was this, he thought as he picked it up.

He unrolled the parchment and stared at it for a long moment. "Swift and daring, huh?" he said with a little grin. "I like it." He rolled it up again, tied it closed and slipped it into his pocket before walking out.

Time to blow this Popsicle stand.

Roch's HP: 35/50
Attacks hit: 3
Attacks Missed:  

[Ice Queen]

AMITYVILLE ACADEMY

To all whom these presents shall have come: Greetings unto you.

Be it known that we, the Headmistress and Faculty of the Academy under authority of Fear and the Laws of Halloween, have admitted

Rochester England Scythe - The Swift and Daring

the Rights, Privileges, and Dignities to which a Persons of Halloween with Amityville Experience may Expect.