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antichristsxbox · 5 years ago

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Ravenous

Summary: You and your husband, Michael Langdon, just arrived at Outpost Three.

From the writer: Hey guys! This is the first-ever smut piece/drabble/writing/anything I’ve posted! I really hope you enjoy it. I’d like to say a huge thank you to @jocelynscloset for proofreading this and giving me suggestions. If you have any requests for me, hit up my inbox or messages! Also, let me know if you’d like to be on my tag list for future posts. If you like this, feel free to check out some of the other things I’ve written here. :)

Word count: 2,047

Background knowledge is in Italics:

There was no need for you to ever kill for blood when you had your sweet, unlimited supply in the form of your amazing husband. He had his cravings fixed with you as you had yours fixed with him; he could heal your wounds as well as his own instantly after he was through feeding off of you (and vice versa when you fed from him). He had inoculated you, but only because you wanted to be with him forever. The ancient virus allows for both of you to be forever intertwined, always in need of your other half.

The Outpost seemed to be in order, although you had just arrived with Michael a few hours ago. Your husband was running a bath while you sat near the fire and read. Inside here is much better than where you were a few hours ago— a carriage with only a thin layer separating you from the nuclear wasteland you once called home. This outpost even seems more upscale than the others. There’s decorative furniture, a library with floor-to-ceiling bookcases full of books, and every room has its own armoire full of different styles of clothing, depending on rank in Ms. Venable’s order. While there was still clothing available at your disposal, you and Michael had each brought a chest of clothing that is more your style.

“You’re wearing that?”

You turn around to meet Michael’s gaze as you hear his voice. His blonde hair looks darker than usual when it’s wet, and his entire upper body is exposed and adorned with little droplets of water while his lower body is covered with a towel. You stand up to walk over and place a hand on his toned bicep— you look up to meet his gaze once again before leaning in for a kiss.

“Why would I not? How else would these shoes be visible?” you say, cocking your head to one side before turning around to sit back down. Your dress isn’t even revealing. It’s a red, off-the-shoulder, A-line dress with a voluminous skirt that stops above your knees. Your shoes are covered in thousands of clear gems, and the red bottoms are accentuated by your red dress. The neckline looks even better with your Tiffany chain choker, heart tag hanging down a few inches above where the dress covers your chest.

After Michael is finished getting ready, you exit your suite and link arms with the sexiest Antichrist you know. Your heels and his shoes click down the hallway, all the way until you enter the foyer of the Outpost.

Hushed conversation turns to silence as you and Michael fully reveal yourselves from the shadows and step in front of the fireplace. Michael introduces himself, then you, and goes on to explain the ‘situation’ of the Outpost currently. It could be overrun or invaded, or the residents could simply run out of food and starve. He states he must conduct interviews to see who is fit to go to the Sanctuary, but you know of his real plans already.

“Any questions?” he asks, and the silence is broken by a hushed conversation filling the chamber again.

“Look at that thing, you could go ice skating on that,” a blonde boy whispers to somebody who seems like she could be his grandmother. He gestures to look over your direction, and you soon realize the blonde boy is referencing your 20-karat, emerald-cut ring that sits on your left ring finger. It’s a true eye-popper, Michael had outdone himself and absolutely hit it out of the park with this ring. You turn to look at the boy and lady, and their hushed chatter falls flat at your gaze.

The boy then pipes up to ask what would happen if somebody does not get chosen for the Sanctuary, and Michael then showcases the cyanide pills— they could be used to commit suicide before cannibals could eat the residents alive. Being eaten dead seems much less painful.

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“Baby, I’m fiending,” you say, sitting down in your chair near the fireplace as Michael opens the closet and hangs up his jacket. You reach behind your back to loosen the corset on your dress.

“But are we fiending for the same thing?” he says in an uppity tone as he walks behind your chair and helps you loosen the corset, then pushes your off-the-shoulder sleeves down even further until you’re half-naked with only a skirt and a pair of high heels on.

His steps soften as he takes off his shoes and approaches the front of your chair. You spread your legs as he walks closer and he leans down on one knee in an attempt to be eye-level with you sitting down. You scoot towards the edge of your seat as he draws himself in closer to you. His lips make contact with yours as he wraps an arm around your back to pull you in. A cold, hard object is placed in your hand as Michael break the kiss and hands you his knife, one hand still pressed firmly to your back.

“I’m all yours,” he says, releasing the knife to your grasp then taking that arm under both of your legs so he could carry you to the bed. The silky sheets making contact with your bare skin as you lay down is soothing. A hand tugs at the bottom of your skirt, and you push the rest of the dress off and throw it to the floor as to not get it bloody from what’s going to come. You’re now only in a pair of high heels and a black thong. Sheets are exclusively red for you and Michael, any other color would get stained too easily. Your Antichrist begins to undress and lays down next to you when he’s only in his black boxers and socks. You sit up and turn over so you could straddle his waist. A thin stream of blood is released as you make a small cut on Michael’s chest. Your lips meet his before traveling down his neck, collarbone, and eventually the small gash a couple inches below his collarbone. Now, your front is pressed against his as you lap up the crimson stream coming from his chest.

“You’re not hungry, Babe?” you ask, breaking contact with Michael’s chest.

His response is to place one hand on the small of your back while the other makes its way to your panties. You’ve been so enticed with the blood, you haven’t noticed how wet you’ve become between your legs. Panties are shoved to the side as a finger makes its way to your wet entrance.

“I’m hungry for something else, Babe,” he says, pumping in and out of you before adding a second finger. Not forgetting what you’re here for, you go back to lapping up blood from his chest, letting out the occasional moan when his fingers hit you in a good spot. He’s still below you while you’re laying on top of him, getting fucked by his fingers and drinking in his life force from him. After you’ve finished with your feeding, he heals himself, but leaves the remaining blood on his chest for fun. Your face is surely covered in red, but he finds it hot, he insists. Hands travel down to his boxers, and you tug at them to release his cock from its tight confines. It springs up, ready for you.

Shuffling down his body until you reach his waist, you hover above him in an attempt to tease. His blue eyes appear darker in the candlelight, but they glisten as you begin to lower yourself. Slowly, very slowly, you take in his head, then take him in at about an inch at a time. This goes on for over a minute, and Michael is wriggling below you, desperate for movement and friction (although he would never admit that out loud, there’s no way he could hide his slight whimpers and his hips bucking up towards you). After you’ve taken him all in, you sit on top of him and stay still, a smirk grazing your lips as you look down at your husband, beads of sweat beginning to form at his forehead. Before you know it, Michael has grabbed your back with one hand, legs with the other, and flipped you over. Now, you lay on your back as he’s perched between your legs.

“Baby, you know I can’t handle you when you tease me like that,” he says, spreading your legs further before he begins thrusting in and out of you. When he takes control like this, it’s incredibly arousing for you. Your wetness is excessive at this point, and Michael is gliding with ease between your legs. Muscles tense below your pelvis, and you know your peak is near. Moans escape your mouth as Michael quickens his pace, anticipating what you knew as well. Before you could be sent over the event horizon of your orgasm, Michael pulls completely out of you.

“What? Baby, why?” you whine, looking up at him and batting your lashes.

“Mhm, you’re such a tease, doll, you should really apologize for that, it’s not very nice,” Michael goes on between raspy breaths, but a smirk remains plastered on his face. You could tell that he was close as well, possibly getting more turned on as you speak. There’s a hint of smugness in his tone, as he knows you want him back where you had him, and you’d likely say what you needed to for him to be between your legs again.

There aren’t many ways you could make this sound good without it coming out as sarcasm, but you had to think quick before Michael loses attention as well as blood flow.

“Please, Baby, I’m sorry for teasing, you know I like games, forgive me,” you go on, beginning to grind your hips up on him, your body begging for his to come together with his again. He throws his head back at your touch and aggressively slams back into you, forceful enough to knock the breath out of your lungs and bring your hungry desire to a point in all one motor. You clench around his length as he continues to move in and out— your moans filling the room, and you almost forget where you are until you realize to quiet down again. However, right when your moans stop, Michael begins to release as his thrusts become erratic but deep. His uneven and rough grunts take the place of your soft moans. His hands begin to tangle in your hair and tug, causing you to lean back and feel him inside you from a different (but even better) angle. Michael’s beautiful face now contorted, mouth agape, eyes closed, brows furrowed. A steady rhythm of him rocking back and forth between your legs. Sex with Michael is more or less a routine for you two, due to how passionate and crazy for each other as you are. But, every time there is something different you notice; it brings a new element of excitement and passion on top of what you already feel. Now, it’s the way his balls slap against your wet heat with every thrust he takes. A consistent, strong sensation that keeps you enticed even after your climax.

The most powerful sensation is when he slams against you as he bottoms out, then fills you with his warmth— you could feel him moving inside you with every individual release and pulse. Michael collapses on you for a moment, burying his chin between your head and shoulder as he begins to slowly pull out from you. Soft kisses are placed on your neck as he wraps his arms around you and curls up next to you.

“Thank you,” he says, looking up at the ceiling, eyes glazed over with tiredness, pleasure, or both.

“I should be thanking you, Babe,” you say, retrieving a washcloth from your nightstand and wiping the now semi-dried blood from your face and chest.

“Let me know when you’re hungry, I love you,” you say with a smile before blowing out the candle on your nightstand and pulling the silky sheets over you and Michael.

“I love you too.”

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Tag list: @langdonsoceaneyes @ms-mead

#michael langdon #michael langdon smut #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon fanfiction #michael langdon imagine

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the-master-cylinder · 4 years ago

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SUMMARY Claire Ward hires private investigator John March to look into the increasingly bizarre activities of her husband Charles Dexter Ward, an esteemed Rhode Island chemical engineer. Through a series of conversations with John, Claire reveals Charles’s recent unexplained isolation in their carriage house, his sudden uncovering of his family history, and their visitation to an abandoned ancestral farmhouse near Pawtuxet where he found a painting of a man named Joseph Curwen, to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance. Since these events, Charles has purchased and moved into the farmhouse, leaving Claire without explanation.

Upon investigating, John finds that numerous deliveries are made to the farmhouse, and inquires about them to Charles, who is evasive; Charles explains that he is undertaking routine chemical tests using animal cadavers. Shortly after, an elderly man in a neighboring home is found brutally murdered, only a few remnants of his bones left in the house. Police assume he was attacked and eaten by an animal, but John is skeptical. Claire and John go to visit Charles together, and find him pallid and speaking with an archaic affect. They attempt to extract an explanation from Charles, but he simply tells them he is on “the edge of greatness”, and that in six weeks’ time, they will understand.

Claire agrees to have Charles committed to a hospital. Doctors find his metabolism to be inexplicably high, triggering ravenous hunger, and attribute his change in demeanor to hormonal issues; however, they are unable to explain his craving for blood and raw meat. Meanwhile, John uncovers a diary in the carriage house from Ezra Ward, Charles’s fifth-great grandfather, dated 1771. The diary explains how Ezra had an affair with Joseph’s wife Eliza, and that Joseph had been practicing necromancy in catacombs he constructed on his property. After a flood penetrated the catacombs, the townspeople discovered a grotesquely malformed creature in the river, which they burned alive. The diary ends leading up to the townspeople’s raid of the Curwen house, and Eliza’s admission to Ezra that she was pregnant with Joseph’s child; Claire, John, and John’s assistant Lonnie surmise that Charles’s biological great-grandfather was actually Joseph, not Ezra.

John and Lonnie decide to search for catacombs on the farmhouse property with Claire. They uncover the entrance in the house’s basement, and inside the catacombs find a laboratory and half-grown creatures in wells; Claire also discovers Charles’s briefcase. They attempt to flee but are attacked, and Lonnie is killed by one of the creatures. John leaves a bomb in the catacombs, and he and an injured Claire escape with the briefcase before the house detonates. John takes Claire to the hospital where she is sedated, and the doctor informs him she is pregnant.

John goes to visit Charles in the psychiatric institution, and confronts him with the briefcase, which he discovered filled with human bones. He accuses Charles of in fact being the 250-year-old Joseph Curwen, who successfully found a way to conquer death through his necromantic experiments. Joseph admits his identity, and confesses that the bones in the suitcase are those of Charles, whom Joseph killed after Charles raised him from the dead. He explains his plan to regain his health and eventually be discharged from the hospital, after which he can impersonate Charles. Joseph attempts to cannibalize John, but John pours the restorative potion from the laboratory over Charles’s bones. Charles’s skeleton reanimates, and begins to tear the flesh off Joseph, before the two disappear in a cosmic explosion.

DEVELOPMENT Two facets of Lovecraft’s work create problems for filmmakers, who must not only wrestle with expanding his short stories to feature length, but must also find a cinematic method of conveying the sense of malign cosmic conspiracy underlying many of his later plots. Perhaps the closest anyone has come to capturing Lovecraft is Roger Corman’s THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963), which, despite its Poe title is actually a previous adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Though Corman retained little of Lovecraft’s plot, many of the author’s more outre concepts survived, and Corman’s visual style was a fair approximation of Lovecraft’s literary voice.

THE RESURRECTED was initially written as a spec script by Brent V. Friedman, whose interest in adapting Lovecraft was piqued by the work of Stewart Gordon. “I didn’t really start reading Lovecraft until I noticed that RE-ANIMATOR was based on his story,” recalled Friedman. “I went out and devoured everything I could by him. The one story that struck me as having filmic potential was The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, because there’s so much there. His stuff is mostly short stories I saw some great little ideas, but I didn’t see a film in any of them.”

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is one of only three short novels that Lovecraft ever wrote. At approximately 120 pages, its length seemed optimum for translation to the screen. Noted Friedman, “Because I was so naive at the time. I thought, ‘This will be easy to adapt.’ It was very difficult. The way the novella is written is just how the title implies—it’s written as a kind of objective look at this strange experience. There was no real main character. Unless you want to make a documentary, that doesn’t hold up.”

Friedman set about adapting the novella without being aware of Corman’s film. “I didn’t see it until after I’d written the script I didn’t realize what it was based on until someone told me,” admitted Friedman. “It’s an interesting little film, but it’s a very different version.” After several drafts, Friedman managed to dramatize Lovecraft’s tale well enough to show the script to producers Mark Borde and Kenneth Raich, who took it to Toni Scotti of Scotti Brothers Pictures. In looking for a director, Borde sent Friedman’s script, then titled SHATTERBRAIN, to Dan O’Bannon through a mutual friend. The choice was appropriate: O’Bannon’s RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD had been an effective low-budget directorial debut; perhaps more importantly, O’Bannon’s ALIEN, though an “original” screenplay, captures many of Lovecraft’s more visual concepts probably better than any official adaptation, particularly in the sequence exploring the alien planet and derelict spaceship.

Coincidentally, O’Bannon had already been trying to adapt Lovecraft’s novella, and he brought many of his ideas to the script. “My script is relatively different from the film,” said Friedman. “I set up the main character as a psychiatrist examining Ward. The thrust was how the case affects this psychiatrist. He’s coming from a scientific background, thinking there’s a rational explanation, and takes on a case which makes him rethink everything he believes. After finding out there’s a supernatural explanation, he ends up going slightly crazy.

“When O’Bannon came onto the project, he had been trying to write a script from the same material, and he felt that he had never cracked the third act. He read my script and said, You’ve solved a lot of the problems, but the way I’d always had it in my mind was the main character’s a detective.’ If he was going to get involved with the project-which everyone was very keen on-he wanted to tell the story his way. Everyone was skeptical at first, because my script was getting good response. O’Bannon wrote out a 15-page treatment to show how you could integrate parts of my script with what his idea was.

Rejected Creature Design

“I can’t even tell you what a thrill it was to find out he was involved with the project.” Friedman enthuses. “In just the past six months that I’ve been working with him. I’ve probably learned more about writing than in the previous 26 years of my existence. It’s almost as if, until that point. I was just winging it.”

“Dan’s thinking was this story naturally lends itself to a detective because there are so many clues to be discovered. It looked good on paper, but the execution was a lot trickier than he had made it seem. The toughest thing was to keep the detective not only intellectually involved, but emotionally involved. Dan’s idea was to involve him, a la CHINATOWN, with the wife—which works on a certain level but on another level becomes distracting.”

The change in lead characters resulted in a change of title as well. “The word ‘shatterbrain’ is actually a Middle English term for crazy,” explained Friedman. “It was more relevant in my original script, because the psychiatrist came unglued. It does sound a little like a B-movie, but at the same time it evokes a certain image, so it was appropriate. I pushed for it long into post-production-people got very bored with my suggesting it. THE RESURRECTED, to me, gives too much away. Once you meet the three main characters -well, one of them’s been resurrected, and it’s not too hard to figure out which one!”

PRE-PRODUCTION Devising a photographic look that would capture Lovecraft’s tone fell to cinematographer Irv Goodnoff, who went through an interesting audition process for his director. “There was one other director of photography interested,” said Goodnoff, “so Dan gave us an assignment to bring in what we thought our interpretation of the script would be.

I went back and studied a number of painters that had the flavor of what H.P. Lovecraft felt like, expressionistically speaking. I brought in 30 books, marked out with the pictures I liked. About a week later, I got a phone call saying Dan wanted me.”

Pre-production lasted from June to October 1990, followed by seven weeks of principal photography in Vancouver, Canada, which doubled for Lovecraft’s beloved Providence, Rhode Island. The Bridge Studios, which cover almost 50,000 square feet, provided ample space for the construction of a labyrinth of tunnels where dwell the ghastly results of Curwen’s experiments.

“It’s a contemporary piece, but there’s also the 18th century and the whole world of the catacombs, so, in essence, the picture has three looks,” explained Goodnoff. “We used two different film stocks: Kodak for most of it, and Agfa for the period scene. The Agfa has a more creamy pastel look; the Kodak is much higher contrast with a denser black.

I try to create a flavor and a feeling. Sometimes, a third of the screen is black, and there are shafts of light. When you’re doing horror, you don’t show everything. Dan O’Bannon told me, “You set an expectation for the audience. Then you make them wait, and you make them wait, and you make them wait. When you finally suggest that they see something, they’re going to be scared.’ That was basically our approach.

“It was the most difficult job I’ve ever had to do. The scheduling should have been nine weeks, but we only had seven. We wrapped principal photography just before Christmas. It was one of those deadline days. The plug was being pulled at midnight. I’ve been on a couple of pictures like that: because of bonds people, financial and contractual things, one minute over 12 means you’ve blown it. Those bottom-line people have no grace in a lot of cases. We had three different units going. I was running from one to the other, checking, then shooting my own unit. It was a 14-hour marathon.”

Sarandon with O’Bannon

“Charles Ward is basically a well-intentioned, good man who is led astray by a desire to conquer this great scientific problem that his ancestor has posed. It’s kind of a parallel to Frankenstein: a good man who is consumed with something that he shouldn’t be messing with. The big theme here is basically “Don’t screw with death.” – Chris Sarandon

SPECIAL EFFECTS The premise of the story is best summed up by a passage Lovecraft quotes from the alchemist Borellus: “… from the essential Saltes of humane Dust, a philosopher may … call up the shape of any dead Ancestour from the Dust where into his Bodie has been incinerated.” Typically, Lovecraft refers to the results, when not all the “essential Saltes” have been gathered, simply as the “livliest awfulness” without ever describing them in detail.

Such restraint doesn’t work on the movie screen, according to Friedman. “He didn’t really show you a lot,” said Friedman of Lovecraft. “In a book that’s almost scarier, because the reader uses his imagination to fill in the blanks. In a film you can’t just keep talking. Ata certain point you have to deliver the goods. The way the script plays is you get up to the point where he left off and then you have to start creating on your own.”

Coming up with specific designs for Lovecraft’s livliest awfulness fell to Masters, who took his initial inspiration from Friedman’s script. “There were incredibly bizarre descriptions which I had a lot of fun interpreting,” said Masters. “When it finally came to materializing these, O’Bannon would show me books of paintings by Francis Bacon, who I’ve always been a fan of. He would express himself in these imageries, these strange concoctions of paint and color and light rather than form and shape. Dan really got into talking about the character rather than the form, so it was an interesting challenge to come up with a design. What we tried to do is take the human form as groundwork and completely distort a certain aspect of itas long as there’s something the audience can grasp, it’s quite frightening. We designed about 30 monsters; in the film there are about five. I’ve still got reams of designs that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use for anything else because they’re so weird.

The effects unit during principal photography was directed by supervisor Todd Masters because O’Bannon was on a tight schedule. “Dan would take a sequence all the way up to where the effects jumped in, and he would finish off a sequence,” said Masters. “He would leave us the middle. My crew worked nights, mainly for sound reasons we didn’t want to cause troubles with the other unit. We had to match a similar camera style. Things marry very nicely.”

“We’ve done more tricks on this film than on any other I’ve ever worked on,” said Masters. “We have monster suits, remote-control animatronic characters, puppet heads, stop motion, and pneumatics. We had a set of prosthetics on Chris Sarandon for a good portion of the end of the film. You can’t tell he’s wearing anything—they match his face-until we turn on the lights. It’s networked with fiber optics, so it gives the illusion that his veins are glowing when he comes to his climactic end.”

“For most of the monsters, I was given a long leash,” Masters explains. “O’Bannon started coming down with quite a strict design on one creature that I called the ‘Darwin monster,’ which in one of the early drafts of the script was actually supposed to be Darwin resurrected. As the script developed, that monster kind of got pulled all over the place. Some of the earlier maquettes had some really wild designs, but O’Bannon finally just said, “Well, you know, what I really want to see in this movie, which we haven’t done yet, is a half-skeletal body-being that these are supposed to be resurrected corpses with its other half this kind of swollen, amorphous, elephantitis looking guy.’

“I was never too excited about that,” Masters admits, “just because I always thought it was more interesting when [the Charles Dexter Ward character] made these mistakes out of these corpses’ ashes–they didn’t always come together in the right place, and would elongate and do strange things. Dan wanted something that was a little stricter, closer to human, so he actually sat down and pencilled out this sketch which would eventually become this monster, and I did a maquette and a variety of sketches to hone in on what he was trying to get.

“It’s a pretty neat monster,” Masters concedes, “but it’s not my favorite in the film, because to me it’s too much of a solid substance. Many of the other ones are so disturbing and so amorphous that it’s difficult to put your finger on exactly what every piece is.”

I though there are a number of creatures in The Resurrected, Masters points out that there isn’t an overabundance of gore for gore’s sake-although there are some healthy sprayings of blood.

“That’s one thing that Chris Sarandon and I were really trying to steer away from,” he clarifies. “I’ve never been a fan of gore, and I don’t really care for splattering walls with blood even though I did splatter two sets with blood for this film. Actually, one day I flew in from LA, got off the airplane, and Dan came up to me and said, ‘Do you have a lotta blood?’ I said, “Well…yeah.’ And he says, ‘Well, do you have lots of blood?’ It’s like, ‘I don’t know.

Extensive visual effects, supervised by Todd Masters in post-production, helped the ambitious nature of screenwriter Brent Friedman’s evocation of the horror of Lovecraft. Though many of the effects in Friedman’s script were deemed too expensive, Masters-originally hired to produce makeup and physical effects-sought to find a way to retain them, working closely with production designer Brent Thomas.

“Thomas really pulled rabbits out of his hat,” said Masters. “He loved the project from day one. He and I would get together after office hours at the studio and sit down in the hotel bar to concoct ideas. That’s how the movie turned into such a crazy fiasco. We thought the whole idea of Brent Friedman’s script was so bizarre and wonderful that we kept wanting to play.

“Every time something was pulled away from us, because there wasn’t money for this monster or that set, Brent Thomas and I would figure a way to put it back in. We didn’t want a film that has small production value. Horror films deserve all the scope and scale they can get.”

The horror that was to be resurrected by detective John Terry early on in Curwen’s laboratory got axed so Masters’ effects unit could afford to rent a studio to work in. As a low-cost stop-gap director Dan O’Bannon suggested that Terry resurrect just two fingers, “a goofy idea,” said Masters, who came up with a believable, low-budget finger monster concept instead. “We had to keep fingers in it,” said Masters, “so we turned this thing into almost a crab monster with fingers, an eyeball, and some external organs.”

After principal photography wrapped, Masters and producers Mark Borde and Kevin Raich viewed a rough assembly to determine what effects were still needed. What was originally intended to be a few weeks of rotoscoping expanded to six months, four shooting miniatures and another two adding opticals. “The producers really wanted it to be an effects-filled film,” said Masters. “We made sure that we kept the budget down. I’ve coordinated a lot of visual effects in the past. Since our eyes were looking through the camera, and our eyes only, we cheated to hide all the expensive stuff just inches out of frame.”

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One amusing episode involved a four-foot-high balsa wood miniature of Curwen’s mansion, rigged to explode. “This was part of Ted Rae’s unit—he did two miniature shots in the film,” said Masters. “We had it set up in Ted’s parking lot, waiting for nightfall. As I was painting part of the chimney, I heard these little cracks in the structure. As I was ready with the final dab of paint, a big gust of wind came and blew the whole thing down! What a nightmare! Ted and I jumped underneath the house and tried to hold it up, but we ended up having to recreate the whole building in a day and blow it up the following night.

“Everybody that worked on this film put their blood into it,” Masters summed up. “It turned into a labor of love for a lot of us-which I know sounds cliched, but everyone was really pulling for it, and it shows in the film.”

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The extensive post-production schedule turned out to be a hindrance for composer Richard Band. “They made about eight edits the night before my recording session,” said Band. “That’s a composer’s nightmare, but all too common these days.” Band came up with a synthesizer score that boasted a full orchestral sound. “To have done this score with an orchestra would have cost $400,000,” said Band. “The producers have resigned themselves to a synthesizer score.”

Summed up Friedman, “I think we retained more Lovecraft than any other adaptation I’ve seen. We didn’t just use the concepts as springboards for our own story. In fact, there’s one scene lifted word-for-word, dialogue-wise, involving the first time you see Curwen posing as Ward, and he’s talking this strange 18th century speak. So there’s some place where Lovecraft is completely intact, and there are others where liberties were taken. It’s not as grossly amusing as REANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND. It takes a much more serious, Gothic slant. In the end, I wish we could have made my original script, but I’m still happy we made something.”

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CAST/CREW Directed Dan O’Bannon

Produced Mark Borde Kenneth Raich

Written Brent V. Friedman

John Terry as John March Jane Sibbett as Claire Ward Chris Sarandon as Charles Dexter Ward/Joseph Curwen Robert Romanus as Lonnie Peck Charles K. Pitts as Ezra Ward Megan Leitch as Eliza Lauren Briscoe as Holly Tender

Special Effects by Jason Barnett … prosthetic effects David P. Barton … prosthetic department head (as David Barton) Julie Beuscher … prosthetic effects Bryan Blair … prosthetic effects Evan Brainard … prosthetic effects Kevin Brennan … prosthetic effects Jeffrey Butterworth … first assistant special physical effects (as Jeff Butterworth) Scott Coulter … prosthetic department head: Todd Masters Company, Inc. (as John Scott Coulter) Bernhard Eichholz … prosthetic effects (as Bernie Eichholtz) Earl Ellis … prosthetic effects: Todd Masters Company, Inc. Kevin Flemming … special effects photography Thomas Floutz … key effects makeup artist (as Thom Floutz) Mark Garbarino … prosthetic department head Karin Hanson … prosthetic effects Marty Huculiak … special effects assistant Timothy Huizing … prosthetic effects (as Tim Huizing) Gil Liberto … prosthetic effects (as Gilbert Liberdo) Geoff Martin … special effects key grip Todd Masters … special effects unit director Mike McDonald … special effects gaffer (as Michael McDonald) Kevin O’Leary … special effects assistant Gary Paller … special physical effects coordinator Dennis Petersen … special effects assistant Tom Price … special effects assistant (as Thomas E. Price) Jonas Quastel … special effects first assistant camera Robert Sheridan … special effects assistant Mark Sisson … prosthetic effects James Slavin … prosthetic effects (as Jim Slavin) Chris Spouler … special effects assistant Candace Van Woerkom … prosthetic effects Andrew Vincent … special effects lamp operator Scott Wheeler … prosthetic effects Shawn Wilson … special effects assistant Andre Bustanoby … prosthetic effects (uncredited)Visual Effects by Bret Alexander … visual effects miniatures Jim Aupperle … visual effects director of photography Asao Goto … visual effects miniatures Dave Gregory … optical effects supervisor Todd Masters … special visual effects Jeff Pyle … visual effects miniatures Ted Rae … additional miniature / visual effects director of photography Marc Tyler … visual effects miniatures David Williams … additional optical camera: Illusion Arts (as Dave Williams)

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique v22n06 Fangoria#106 Fangoria#112 Gorezone#22

The Resurrected (1991) Retrospective SUMMARY Claire Ward hires private investigator John March to look into the increasingly bizarre activities of her husband Charles Dexter Ward, an esteemed Rhode Island chemical engineer.

#90sMovies #Lovecraft

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serendipitykismet · 5 years ago

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Mobile Information : Cashmere Cross

[Fandomless/Multifandom Original Character]

TW for mentions of Physical and Emotional Abuse, Gore, Cannibalism, body horror, 1700's ideas of women, gender issues and race.

Age: Appears to be in his early to mid-twenties. His exact age is 308/309.

Birthdate: Unsure

Nationality: American Race: Anglosaxton Spoken Languages: English (fluent but can be antiquated). Occupation: Unemployed. Height: Humanoid appearance: 5'6" ft / 167 cm Wendigo Posessed: 7'8" ft / 233 cm Weight: Humanoid appearance: 109 lbs / 49 kg Wendigo Posessed: 199 lbs / 90 kg Sexuality: Demiromantic Greysexual Physical description: Humanoid Appearance: Unnatural looking blue eyes, dark inky black hair, extremely pale skin. Entire body and face is extremely gaunt and sickly looking, and his clothes almost look like they could fall off of him at any given moment because they're too large for him. His eyes have developed a tapetum lucidum and reflect light in the dark. Usually depending on the time of day they reflect either a pale blue color or orange. His teeth are a bit uncanny-- not quite monsterous but not quite human either-- and they sometimes can look almost like the way shark teeth will layer as they fall out and grow back in. He looks much more fragile than he is -- and any scars on his body aren't typically visible for long unless they're fresh. Wendigo Posessed: A mass of knotted hair and his whole body smells like a bad mix of blood, decay, and wet dog. The body is guant and seems to warp and twist at the joints in ways that shouldn't be possible. It has a long neck and his face is hairless and bare like a vultures. It almost appears as if someone wrapped flesh around a skeleton or antler velvet over his face like it was latex. His eyes are extremely sunken in and due to this it, his eyes are usually shadowed and just are visible as their tapetum lucidum reflection. His frame is hulking and tall, quadripedal, and, again, appears more thin and fraile than it actually is. The physiology of the creature more closely resembles a deer than a human at this point. It's extremely dangerous to get close to him in this form as he no longer recognizes anyone as human, but his body is cold and feels corpse-like under the thick fur. His teeth are thin and extremely pointed-- almost like needles and resemble stalagmites with the way they layer and shape. His teeth are extremely easy to break because they are so thin, but they will eventually regrow. It's mouth produces a very unpleasantly sweet smelling saliva that is almost constantly seeping. It smells similar to rotting fruit and a very slight bit of that same blood and decay smell he always emits. Mannerisms: Cashmere has a sort of unending patience which allows him to be still for long periods when he's not feeding. His face is typically schooled into impassivity, occassionally showing the emotional wear of years of stress and trauma. Education: Only educated to around 6th grade level in the 1700s. Emotional and Mental Description: Cashmere is extremely isolationist, stand-offish, and volatile. He's got severe PTSD, and lives in near-constant fear of himself. He purposely seeks out the most uninhabitable environments, knowing it will lessen the risk of humans accidentally wandering into his feeding range and make it less likely that he will lose his carefully maintained control. It's almost like living in a constant state of sleep paraylysis-- only ever partially in control of his body and sometimes out of control entirely and unable to do anything but watch as he's forced to feed. Being surrounded by as much gore and violence as he has been exposed to, he's become sort of desensitized to the imagery of it, but it always weight a little harder because he knows that he's taking humans away from their families. He tries to force himself to feed only on animals, but there's only so much control he has. It's extremely hard to get close to him, and he lives in fear of losing those who do become close. He can be cruel and violent towards others though it's debatable how much of that is his doing and how much of it is the uncontrollable hunger that he feels. That being said, he's a mess, and those who do manage to get close are prone to be heavily relied on. Cashmere believes that, in a sense, believes that he's living his own personal hell and that he's being forced to relive the worst moment of his life. history Cashmere's parents were immigrant farmers from Portsmouth, Britain who arrived in Massachusets in the 1720's. While they lived a rather kushy life in England, in the states they were burdended with an infertile patch of land in an area with extremely hard winters. They were a very typical family of the time -- believing that men had a place in society and that women were homemakers. Cashmere was fairly isolated from the rest of his family-- his two eldest brothers still resided in the UK, and his parents were entirely unconcerned with his education and wellbeing. The member of his family he was closest with was his elder sister, Evelyn, who was still considerably older than Cashmere, but helped to raise Cash and do her best to encourage his curious mind and athletic behavior dispite his parents disapproval. In seeking to fill the financial disaster that they had been pulled into, they decided to use their youngest child -- at the time called Cassandra Cross -- as a bartering chip. This is how Cashmere found himself betrothed at the age of 16 to one of the richest and notoriously violent men in the settlement. His parents recieved a handsome dowry when he was married, but both Cashmere and Evelyn protested the marriage. The wealthy socialite that he was to be married off to had already been married twice before-- one of which who had died accidentally, and the other was never found, presumed dead. Their fears were well founded, and Cashmere quickly met resistance for his silver tongue and penchant to shrug off household chores in the form of physical abuse. Cashmere was trapped in the marriage for a few years, his will broken by fear. While his sister was solace and assistance, Cashmere was pushed to his breaking point. After being left black and blue a time too many, something inside of Cash snapped. While his husband sat eating at the dinner table, Cashmere cleaved a wood cutting axe into the back of his head as deeply as he could. The decision was impulsive, and panic set in nearly as soon as the deed was done. Under the cover of night, Cashmere sought Evelyn, and the two decided to flee. If they could get out of the settlement and migrate elsewhere, there was a chance that Cashmere could be spared being hung for the murder. Cashmere returned to his home one final time, retrieving a horse and carriage before setting the home ablaze in the hope that that would throw them off their tracks for the time being. Cashmere and Evelyn set off into the dense wilderness, seeking refuge elsewhere. Their plan may have worked, had their horse not broken its leg on the ruddy paths in the wilderness. The following days were a blur of greif for Cashmere, as his sister succumb to the elements and he was isolated without food in the dead of winter and alone in the the wilderness. His already frayed emotions couldn't handle starvation setting in-- and having already slaughtered his horse, he was forced to resort to cannibalism as his strength started to fail him, beginning his descent into the ravenous hunger that came with transformation into a wendigo-- though there was still much more to his story after that...

#OOC || quick while no one else is looking #Cashmere || Weepy chests with weepy sighs #mobile info

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nezzfiction · 5 years ago

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Team WISE Ch. 2 - Ember

Series Synopsis: Ten years have passed since Team RWBY disbanded. Remnant is in the midst of its Second Great War. And while the Kingdoms wage battle and destruction against one other, a darker, more ancient threat grows in its shadow. Only a select few are willing to set aside past differences to see the greater danger Remnant faces. Only those who possess the wisdom to seek out the truth in the dark—those who are truly wise. To that end, Weiss Schnee assembles her private group of covert operatives.

This is the story of Team WISE.

Links to read the series: Ao3 or FF.net

Or hit the jump below:

Ember

They are the remains of a dying fire.

Or the lights of a new flame.

Both, hand in hand, one and the same.

Like new and old feathers of a phoenix.

The air whistled as a curved blade almost took her head off. Fortunately, she read it ahead of time, and ducked just below.

“Tsk!” Yang gave an annoyed click of her teeth.

Her opponent didn’t stop his motion. Instead, they rode the momentum, and repeated the strike lower. It wasn’t as much as a weapon, as it was a scorpion tail that almost cut a poisonous gash through Yang’s abdomen.

“Damn it!”

The boxer was forced to break her stance, and back away.

“Come on~” Tyrian Callows taunted. “Where did all the usual bravado go? Don’t tell me your afraid♪?”

“That’s rich, coming from the guy who’s been ducking me for weeks.”

In the gladiatorial arena, the audience around them cheered with depraved cries. Each and every one of them, wearing black and white striped clothes. A cheap fence was all that separated the ring from its spectators, who watched from multiple levels. A prison within a prison, where people were little more than caged animals tearing each other apart.

Yang was on the verge of bum rushing forward, when cooler voices counseled the move.

Come on, don’t rush it.

She watched Tyrian’s scorpion tail whip back and forth in readiness.

He wants you to make the first move. You’ve seen how he fights.

He likes to talk smack, but he’s crap at taking it.

Yang hocked a spit to the side, and braced her fists under her chin.

Easy does it. Bait him in, like the sap he is.

It felt like she exercised more patience in the last few months than she had in her entire lifetime.

The time’ll come. You already learned this. Just ball up the hate for now.

Yang remembered that fateful day, her harsh reminder that curbed her attitude.

Don’t want to lose another arm. Don’t play his game. Play yours.

Her feet began to shuffle back and forth. Slow at first, then faster in succession. She backed around the perimeter of the ring, as if provoking her opponent with her nimbleness. A daredevil’s smile trailing her façade.

“You know, for a joint that brags about keeping Mistral’s hardest criminals, you guys are actually a bunch of softies!” Yang smirked. “And you’re supposed to be the sharpest shiv in this clink? What a joke.”

“You won’t be smiling for long,” Tyrian hissed. “When I’m done with you, I’ll rip out your tongue, so you’ll never breathe another word again! And then, I’ll—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something about intestines, and whatever other cannibal fetish fantasy. Heard worse from people who actually matter? Let’s dance, scrub!”

Tyrian’s anger reached its boiling point, as he pounced with an inhuman-like agileness. At the same time, Yang banked her body down into a forward dash.

Just as Tyrian’s tail stabbed from above like a curved dagger, the boxer swerved right. The stinger cut through a few locks of her hair, arousing her rage and her Semblance.

Don’t lose yourself, Yang reminded.

Channel it, control it, own it.

Don’t let it own you.

Her hair set ablaze and her irises dyed a bloody red, but she maintained her temper. Like sinking her emotions below the ocean’s surface, she focused her attention elsewhere.

Fake the entry.

Yang feigned a resumed dash into Tyrian’s guard.

It’s what he wants. You know what’s going to happen next.

Tyrian’s lips pulled into a wide grin. His tail flicked up instantly, like he expected the miss. A second, more deadly strike, came down. Its point drove right atop Yang’s skull.

Too easy.

The attack was deeper than the first. It struck the ground, as Yang dodged left. She finally let her rage go. Her boot stomped the tail at an angle, preventing Tyrian from pulling it back.

Yang watched the shock on her opponent’s face with grim satisfaction. Her elbow drew a wide arc, right before letting loose a sweeping downward punch.

“GRRAAAAAHHHHH!!!” Tyrian shrieked, as his tail was blown off in the middle. “YOU BITCH!”

While her opponent cursed, Yang didn’t pause for a second. She went immediately into Tyrian’s body. Short pummeled bursts crunched out from the boxer, repeatedly jamming her fists into the man’s ribs.

Should be careful, Yang reminded herself with reluctance.

As much as I’d love to induce organ failure…

…Still need him alive.

The moment Yang stopped her assault, Tyrian bent forward from the pain of having his ribs pound to dust. Right then, the knuckles of Yang’s gauntlet cracked the side of his head. His ear went completely deaf on that side.

“Man, that was really exciting. You had me worried there for a bit,” Yang breathed a long yawn down at him. And then, grasped the back of his ponytail.

Seeing the match finished, she turned her gaze to the crowd. Her fellow inmates were cheering uproariously. Unintelligible chanting and slurs cascaded the rounded walls. When they coalesced, she heard the singular word like the voice of continuous thunder.

“Death.”

As per the fighting arena’s tradition, the audience liked to chant the desired fate of the defeated. And it was rare, if ever, they chose mercy.

Yang glared condescendingly at Tyrian still keeled over on the ground.

“You hear them, right? With your other ear, I mean.”

“…Do it!”

“I could,” she paused. “Or maybe, you can give me something to convince me otherwise.”

“…? He..hehe…hehehehahaha! So that’s what you’re after!”

“Not so loud, dumbass, or I might just change my mind.”

“I wondered why you were down here.”

“Adam Taurus, Qrow Branwen, Raven Branwen. I want intel.”

“Hahaha! Sure! I’ll tell you whatever you want!”

In the face of Tyrian’s demented smile, Yang could only snarl in disgust.

“Great.”

X X X X X

Hovering about one kilometer above Mistral’s underground max security prison, was a stealth flight airship. The swordfish-like vessel tread the night sky. Its reflective coating made it blend in with its surrounds. And just aboard, its two passengers made preparations to deploy.

“Alright.”

Weiss entered a few keys into her scroll, before holding it out. Holographic layers of the prison luminated for her and her partner to see.

“Our target is located at the deepest level of the structure. Here.” A red beacon flashed at the bottom of the cylindrical facility. “According to our source, breaking into the prison won’t be difficult. It’s breaking out, which will provide the most challenge.”

“It’s a prison. Of course, they made it harder to break out.”

Ignoring her partner’s remark, Weiss proceeded. “The moment the target is brought above the floor they are assigned, her location tracker will trigger the prison’s alarms. And considering the deepest levels are reserved for their most dangerous criminals, a full lock down of the entire facility will commence.”

“Did she have to be at the bottom level?”

“…Apparently, she thought it was a necessity, but that’s beside the point. That is where the target is, and that is where we have to retrieve her from.”

“Just like any bungee jump through twenty-seven levels of high security. What goes down, must come up. Shouldn’t be all that hard,” she said sarcastically.

“The two of us are more than capable of accomplishing this feat. Are you ready, Scarlet?”

“I really wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“Are you ready?”

Ruby sighed.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

The two made their final weapons check and preparations to drop. Weiss tucked her hair into the collar of her cloak and donned a White Fang mask. Ruby threw her a sideways look, while hesitating with the mask in her own hands.

“It’s only smoke screen,” Weiss added. “There’s no reason to think too deeply about it.”

When they finished, Weiss turned to the ship’s cockpit, which had no pilot in it. There, the control console was operated by the woman’s personal AI.

“Penny. Circle the area until I signal for pick up.”

[Yes, Ma’am.]

The side-doors of the aircraft slid open, and the two Huntresses dropped into freefall. The night breeze blew them back and forth in their descent. Course corrections were made along the way by shifting their drag.

Once they neared the gate doors, they timed their entry with the arrival of a descending transport ship. With the prison practically a vertical drop pit, an aircraft was what the workers used to travel up and down the levels.

By the time Weiss and Ruby were reaching groundside, the ship was already through, with the gate shutting just behind it.

“Scarlet,” Weiss called.

No response from the girl falling beside her.

“Scarlet!” she called again.

Still, nothing.

“RUBY!”

The red Huntress’s cloak expanded to the size of a parachute, before engulfing them both. Then, like a crimson specter, the fluttering cloth spilled into the thin slit of the gate just as it closed. The width of which, could not be wider than a few inches.

In Ruby’s cloaked form, her and Weiss dropped past the prison transport ship, and into the lower levels. A bed of vine and roses spawned to cushion their fall, when they made contact with the bottom floor.

The sound of the impact surprised prisoners wandering the near vicinity. But upon looking to what caused the noise, they saw nothing—save for a thin red blur at the very corner of their eyes.

Within the shadow of her partner’s cowl, Weiss tracked their positions on her scroll. The distance from her and the target was closing.

“Right at this corridor. Left, and then, another left,” she instructed along the way.

While they traversed the labyrinth with ease, Weiss couldn’t help but be impressed with Ruby’s abilities. She had studied them, of course. Trained through multiple sessions and simulations in order to familiarize. But experiencing it in a live situation, with the sensation of being spirited away, was something else entirely.

She could only wonder what else her partner was capable of…

And also, whether their fight at Beacon was actually Ruby’s version of “serious” or not.

But that was a thought for another time.

“We’re here. Past the door on your right.”

On Weiss’s instruction, Ruby’s cloak swept through the bottom slit of a locked door. The red cloth exploded in size for a brief moment. And then, like drawing a curtain, their two figures revealed on landing. A reappearance similar to the end of a magic trick.

Before them, was their target. A woman facing a bloodied-up man, tied in chains and hanging from the ceiling. Her gold gauntlets dyed in crimson from the obvious use of physical torture.

“…Yang?” Ruby muttered with a hush. “What… are you—?”

“—Ember,” Weiss called to the target and stepped forward. “The timetable for your exfil has been moved up.”

“…I know,” Yang answered, without turning around. “I got the message.”

“Then, why didn’t you respond or meet us at any of the contact points?”

“Needed more time. I wasn’t done getting our info. That IS why you sent me down here in the first place, remember?”

“I told you, we have more urgent matters for pulling you out,” Weiss huffed. “…Did you get the relevant information?”

Yang lightly shoved the near-corpse of Tyrian, like a beaten-up punching bag. Him swinging helplessly, and dripping blood all over the floor brought her a small sense of joy.

“Part of the intel,” she answered. “He lost conscious midway through. Freakin’ pillowcase.”

“We need to go, now. It won’t be long until the prison systems detect an anomaly.”

“There’s still more I can get out of him. Can Scarlet take him with us?”

Ruby stared at her sister, who she barely recognized. A Yang so cold and callous, it made her question if this was really the same person she shared her childhood with.

“—Scarlet,” Weiss prompted beside her.

“No,” Ruby shook her head. “No, we can’t take him. I can only carry two other people in my cloak.”

“Hmph, well, that’s a bummer,” Yang scoffed.

With that, she buried one more fist into the Tyrian punching bag, before turning to leave. As she passed Weiss, the woman grabbed her arm.

“Was this really warranted?”

Yang shook the woman’s hand off her prosthetic.

“He pissed me off. So, yeah. He had it coming. Now, are we going, or what?”

She then, shouldered past Ruby, and out of the room.

…

“Focus on the task at hand,” Weiss answered the blank look Ruby was throwing her way. “The issue with Ember we can wait until later. Right now, the priority is to leave this place before—”

Just then, alarms began to sound. All lights in the prison shut off, except for the flashing of red strobes.

“—That. Happens.”

“Huh. I heard they added new motions sensors,” Yang commented.

“And you only thought to mention this NOW?”

“I said, ‘I heard’. Didn’t know if they were true. Maybe, I should’ve mentioned it if it meant stalling you from coming.”

The three maneuvered through the maze, and arrived at the center yard. They looked up to where Weiss and Ruby made entry, and saw a number of gates closing overhead.

“So much for going out the way we came,” Ruby squinted.

“When the prison shuts down, it gates off a section every seven floors,” Yang told them. “So, we’re looking at four in total.”

Weiss projected the prison’s holographic map on her scroll.

“Scarlet’s Semblance doesn’t allow us to ascend at that steep an angle, especially with those shields in the way. Which means, this is our only route.”

She indicated on the projection, an arrow that circled the circumference of the cylinder like an upward spiral.

“Uphill fight. WAY uphill…” Yang grimaced. “It’s always the hard way with you.”

“As if you aren’t used to it, by now,” Weiss replied. “How many HEIT charges do you have?”

“Five. Didn’t have to use a single one while I was down here. Good thing I saved them.”

“Yes. Considering, I can’t rely on my Semblance openly. No one is to know I was down here.”

“Right,” Yang chuckled, and tapped Weiss’s White Fang mask. “Cause your Glyphs basically broadcast who you are every time you use them…”

“I’ll provide us backup support. Scarlet will move us to each gate. Ember will breach. Are the assignments clear?”

“Crystal clear, Winter.”

The two then, turned to Ruby for a response.

“…Yeah. Alright.”

At that moment, smoke canisters were being fired all around them. The prisoners along the walls began choking and vomiting profusely.

“Oh, yeah,” Yang smirked. “Did I not mention in the intel I sent you, that in the case of a full lockdown, the prisoners in the other sections get beaten to shit by the prison guards…”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’,” Weiss rested a hand on her hip.

“BUT the prisoners on the lowest levels get teargassed THEN, get beaten to shit by prison guards.”

“Hmph. How barbaric…”

As another wave of canisters launched into their closer vicinity, Weiss drew a circle around them with her Myrtenaster. Extremely cold mist concentrated to snuff the fuse triggers within each, effectively disarming them. She then, conjured a thin layer of armor to protect her group’s skin and face.

“That should do until we escape this section.” Weiss nodded to her partner. “Scarlet.”

I wish she’d stop calling me that…

Ruby expanded her cloak once more to envelope Yang and Weiss. Following her leader’s direction, she whisked them through the labyrinthian circumference of the prison. Her wraith form weaved between the chaos of other prisoners and guards, under the cover of tear gas. She slipped through tight spaces that would stop any normal-sized person.

After flying through several floors and up some staircases, the team met their first real obstacle. They reached one of the four airtight section gates. But, as if presenting the exact solution to their problems, Yang launched from the cover of the crimson cape.

A large caliber round clicked into the firing chamber of her prosthetic. The trigger was pulled, and the afterburners lining her forearm and elbow, thrust with a piercing roar. Yang’s right punch rocketed her towards the gate.

The five guards lined up to guard the stairway hatch opened fire. Unbeknownst to them, each shot Yang absorbed fed into her Semblance, making her more powerful. Her hair ignited like a blazing sun, growing brighter and brighter with every ounce of damage converted into energy.

As soon as her fist made contact with the ceiling, a plume of hellfire erupted. The steel layer, which was several feet thick, warped through the point of impact like melted foil. And Yang’s burning gauntlet carried her through to the other side.

Where she landed, she ejected the spent shell of a bullet with a satisfying clink.

One gate down, three more to go. Plenty of HEIT to spare.

After a moment, Yang looked down the hole she created, curious to where her allies were. The fluttering of Ruby’s cloak revealed the severely singed guards caught in her wanton destruction. Her little sister glared up accusingly at her.

Yang only shrugged coolly, as if to say it couldn’t be helped.

“YAN—!”

“Scarlet!” Weiss stopped her partner, and applied a simple cold treatment to the guards’ burn wounds. “This isn’t the time nor the place. We need to keep moving.”

“Grr…!”

Again, the group proceeded to the next section gate the same way as before. There were more guards and prisoners this time. Parts in their ascension could not be slipped through without interference.

To make enough room, the three dashed out of Ruby’s cape to make quick work of those standing in their way. Yang peppered a number of vitals to crumple bodies to the ground. Weiss performed a quick succession of thrusts to disable a few limbs. And Ruby summoned a nest of thorned vines to bind and cut any who remained.

As they came to the next stairway hatch, Ruby rushed ahead of Yang to disable the guards. By the time the elder sibling was throwing her punch, the younger had drew the guards out of the blast radius. Another begrudging glare from Ruby towards her older sister followed.

“—Do you think you could use your Semblance without causing unwanted casualties?” Ruby confronted.

“—I could, but I won’t,” Yang narrowed her eyes back. “Sorry, teach.”

“—Rein it in! The both of you!” Weiss ordered. “If you have the energy to argue, save it for the rest of the climb up!”

“…”

Her two teammates gave her the silent stare for a moment, but nodded their acceptance eventually. Just as they were proceeding to the next floor, Weiss grasped Yang’s shoulder and spoke in her ear.

“Minimize the blast radius of your HEIT charges. I don’t want Scarlet wasting her Aura saving people we don’t need to.”

Yang seemed to sigh dismissively, but consented to the order all the same.

Weiss continued to navigate her team, issuing instructions as the situation changed floor by floor. Even without her Semblance, she was a force to be reckon with. In some cases, her swift movement dispatched marks before her other two teammates could react.

She kept a close eye on Ruby and Yang’s statuses. Managing their stamina and Aura reserves was vital. There were moments, when she had to take the task of clearing almost an entire floor on her own. But it was thanks to that efficiency and control, her team reached the last section gate.

The steel reinforced barrier burst like a miniature volcano, sending pieces of shrapnel everywhere.

As Yang shot through the shaft she made, she took a moment to deeply inhale the fresh night air. Her eyes scanned the open skies with a sense of wonderment. It was her first taste of freedom in a while, and she wanted to enjoy it.

Weiss and Ruby joined her shortly. Weiss immediately speaking into her scroll.

“Penny. We are ready for pickup. LZ is hot. I repeat…”

All around the three, a small army of prisoner workers painted them with laser sights from their guns.

“LZ is hot.”

X X X X X

In the darkness of her government office, a woman viewed the footage of one of Mistral’s prisons recent break outs. Her eyes scrutinized the video feed, replaying key frames on her terminal.

The assailants’ faces were hidden by White Fang masks. Hoods obscured their appearances, and the skills they displayed matched nothing in the Kingdom’s data banks. Also, the prisoner who escaped was catalogued under what was obviously a cover name.

“Ember Branwen…”

The woman played with how the name sounded on her lips.

“Hm. Things might be starting to move very quickly going forward.”

She brought up enhanced screenshots of the other two, and laid the three side by side. Even if the software couldn’t identify a match, and the perpetrators did well in hiding their true fighting styles, the woman could tell.

After all, she and her team studied them very closely once upon a time.

They could mismatch their movements as much as they liked, but the core of their techniques was still there. Their abilities much more developed than she had last seen, but there was no mistake.

The woman pressed a button on her desk to summon her team to the office.

Not a minute later, two figures entered.

“Did you need something, Cinder?” Emerald asked.

“Prepare to mobilize the Third Armada,” she ordered. “Mercury, I have a special job for you.”

“Who’s getting AMFed this time, boss?”

“Strictly force reconnaissance—for now. I need you and a squadron of the best of your family to infiltrate Vacuo.”

“So, we’re keeping this hush from Adam?”

“Better he remains unaware.”

“Anything I’m looking for specifically?”

“If my intuition serves me right, you’ll know when you see it.”

Emerald and Mercury stared at each other for a moment, before turning back to their leader.

“It’s happening, isn’t it?” Emerald questioned. “The End of Remnant…”

“Hm.” Cinder knitted her hands thoughtfully. “I’m not quite sure what to make of any of this yet. But there is one thing I am sure of…”

“The White Queen is making her moves.”

X X X X X

It was late at night, when Team WISE returned to their covert base of operations on the island of Vytal.

Weiss was in her room, going over her notes and making future preparations for their next op, when a knock came at her door.

For a second, she thought of ignoring them.

“Don’t ignore me! I can hear you thinking about it!”

A long sigh escaped her, as she reluctantly operated the electronic panel. The entryway slid open on unlocking.

“Something I can help you with?”

“Just wanted to chat,” Yang grinned. “Can I come in?”

Weiss didn’t move, only continuing to glare up at the girl.

“You have an opinion you would like to share?”

“Hah…yeah.” Yang scratched the back of her head. “To be honest, I didn’t expect you to be the one to come get me, much less her.”

“Scarlet.”

“Sure. But seriously, I expected MY team to be the ones to break me out.”

“We are your team.”

“If you say so, Winter.”

The use of her code name, outside of operations, made her twitch. Weiss was going to yell at the woman, but knew that was exactly what Yang wanted. Instead, she controlled her temper, and decided to let her teammate say her piece.

“So, why’d you have to pull me out so quick?” Yang asked.

“There have been new developments.”

“Oh, yeah? Like, what?”

“…One of the Relics has been discovered.”

Yang’s eyes grew wide at that.

“Crap.”

“Yes. My thoughts exactly. Its location and who is in possession of it are unknown. But it is in transit.”

“Isn’t that a all-hands-on-deck kind of deal? Don’t tell me we’re going in this small?”

“We cannot stand to divert more personnel or make larger movements at this juncture. The quieter, the darker, the better. At least, for the time being.”

“…Still, did it have to be—Scarlet?”

“She is an invaluable asset to this team’s operations. We need her.”

“Are you sure, you just don’t mean you?”

Weiss locked Yang in a steely gaze.

“You only told her the bare minimum, right?” the other continued. “She doesn’t know anything about what you and I have done.”

“…No. Of course, not.”

“Hmph,” Yang scoffed. “And if she’s on the team, don’t tell me…”

“The next operation will be taking place in Vacuo.”

“…To get Adam, right?”

“No.”

“Arrrggghhh!!! Come ON, WEISS! Are we really going to recuit—”

“Yes. As you so accurately surmised, we will be proceeding to Vacuo to collect the last vital member of our team.”

Yang exhaled a long, groaning sigh of exaggerated lament. After a moment, she composed herself. The girl’s irises taking on a deathly kind of glint.

“—And, Adam? You read the info I got out of Tyrian, before you and your partner so rudely interrupted my interrogation.”

“…”

“You promised me this, Weiss.” Yang leaned her hands against the edges of the door frame. “Don’t tell me I don’t get to make that prick pay for what he did to me.”

“……What do you need?”

“I need MY team—the team that puts bodies in coffins.”

Weiss closed her eyes in thought, weighing the best choice actions versus potential fallouts.

“Team CFEN will be sorted for deployment,” she answered. “But only after Iris has been acquired. Just so you have your priorities in order.”

“Fine!” Yang banged her fist on the doorway. “We get Iris first. Then, I get Adam.”

“Agreed.”

The two teammates shared a tense silence. Yang still felt some blood rushing to her head, but was able to quiet the rage threatening to boil. Instead, she was struck with the urge to let out her pent-up stress.

“You know…I was in prison for a while. And a girl has needs.”

“…”

Seeing her leader stay silent, Yang could only grin in resignation. Just as she was about to make her way back to her room, Weiss stepped back from the door.

“Well? Are you coming in?”

Yang let a chuckle escape her.

“You sure? Ruby is here, after all. Bet you haven’t told her anything about our little arrangement.”

“…”

“…Get inside.”

#rwby #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #ruby rose #freezerburn #rwby fanfiction #rwby au #Team WISE

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