This is an archive of Sepias Parooz's actions during the nexus world tournament.

A man and his grimly existence sunk deep into a rustic-orange sofa, sulking, like he had a cloud above his head. The mauve suited man could be seen isolated, in the back of a speakeasy with the posture of a willow. In front of him, a table of hallowed shrunken heads operating as ashtrays. Stuffed in their sockets, ears and mouths were an infestation of cigar butts whose ashes gave off heat like whitening charcoal. Unsatisfied, he lit another with a spontaneous amber flame dancing in tune with the blaring brass vibrations of the club. The deafening volume of ragtime performed by a trio of ghouls several meters from him served a single purpose. To drown his monstrous den of conflicting emotions, all with their own voice, festering within his troubled mind.

Some days, this pulsing migraine of guilt and shame was only a minor inconvenience, and others, like today, physically drained his spirit. It was a curse, one embraced out of respect to his family. A crime family, spearheaded by his superior, the "Top Card," Ealdorman Sarcoen. If Sepias, underboss of the syndicate failed to abide by the orders of the mafia's head, order would not resume.

Like a prisoner awaiting bond, Sepias past issues shackled him. He was a shell of himself, in an internal high that caused him to meander clubs, graveyards and casinos like a zombie. The flame which powered his soul was faint, dim, dying even…

clink

A noise akin to a finger gently tapping on an aquarium, woke him from a near dose. At this point, the sounds of the band felt muffled and began to endlessly reverberate until it fizzed out. Sepias closed his eyes…

clink
Gradually, the haze of his conscious simmered. The depressing voices, the constant anxiety and most importantly, the feeling of inadequacy dissolved. All he could make out in the blackness was the crossfading image of a gold coin, painstakingly twirling in the air. It landed in a hand resembling a heavyfisted fiend closing upon arrival, concealing the results.

"Clean yourself up. We got shit to do, Parooz."

"That voice. That hand. Sepias eyes rolled like slot machines, with both eyes buldging with lucky number seven embranded. A coin fell into his palm. It landed heads showcasing the sinister leer of a baphomet and now his eyes held the same amber glow.

Not only was the curse gone, his presence, his name was back. The Jazz music literally stopped as the entire speakeasy appeared to strengthen up their posture and collectively swallow. They understood the magnitude of his return. They knew exactly what it meant for everyone associated with the Sarcoen family for Ealdorman's dog, his enforcer to be let loose. Collectively, the organization was low on souls, and now, they had to do their jobs.

He had his name back. Parooz. And just as soon as his intent sent out venom into the room's atmosphere, he was gone…

"Welcome warrior."

Ō-yoroi-clad warriors, many horsebacks, marched upon a valley to war. Their battle was a long one, outlining an end of an era. Their battle littered the pasture with a generation's worth of soldiers, involuntarily issuing a scene that'd bring a smile to the devil's face. Such a scene warranted an omen; by the slay, these grounds merged into Yomi. Known as a desolate land of the dead, portrayal or not, a sinister spirit like Parooz should spawn here. It was apropos. To the average soul, this is hell.

In times of war, it's commonplace for soldiers to be desensitized to death, seasoned by their losses and wounds of the flesh. Their fates were scripted under feuding regimes but loyal they remained. Honor burked any qualms of futility. In their society, it was second to nothing, but when faced with the unknown, like any variable, things change. In the face of this unknown, the well of valor ran dry.

"Y-Y-Yokai!!!"

One warrior butt-planted, failing to wield his already bloodstained nodachi which fell by his waistline. Parooz overlooked him, veiling them both in a fog of smoke that naturally permeated out of his bodily exits. The mobster seemed unamused. He wasn't buying the stock sold to him about this nexus mumbo-jumbo. At first, he believed Ealdorman, the mafia's head put him up to the task. But this tournament was an awfully inefficient way to gain souls. What good was it to take souls from individuals soon fated to meet the reaper anyway? He had to get out of here and perhaps the only way was to win.

"Yokai? I hate those guys!"

An angry Parooz planted his boot's heel into the ass of the fleeing warrior who mistook his identity. Efficaciously, he punted him through the battlefield subsequently dropping him before a peculiar boy brandishing a golden aura. An abundance of unnatural smoke billowed off the armored warrior's arse and began to blend in and influence the scattered fire's fumes throughout the theater.
"I assume that's my opponent?"

Parooz placed his hand on his chin. He was the only individual colored as he was. Curious about the boy, an eye sprouted from the samurai's left cheek, and a mouth followed. He got an up close and personal look. The soul was beamy, bright like his own but for an entirely different cause. This devil's soul was brightened with hell flame. He flipped his baphomet embossed coin. It was face up.

"This is just an observation, but I think we're fated to fight. No hard feelings."

The spawned mouth on the man's opposing cheek spoke out to the boy, subsequently saying "ahhhh," like it was at the dentist. It revealed a pristine stiletto knife smothered in energy that felt like the devil himself. It was kind of overkill considering the black forked tongue fondling and tongue kissing the blade was an elongating razor in itself. The stiletto's edge hummed pink till it was fuchsine, emphasizing an overload of nefarious energy and heat that'd liquefy carbon nanotube. It was practically a fancy stick of dynamite with all its potential energy adding to its natural cleaving ability to holy or magical barriers. To be frank, he considered both the same. Parooz knifes worked. That's all he cared about.

While all this played out, more and more samurai fled with some collapsing from the sweltering heat. One stood oddly close to Parooz, paralyzed by the disbelief, ignoring the devil entirely. Intrigued, the mafia underboss placed his arm around the shoulder of the warrior whose uchigatana, stood firmly in the cindering sward.

"What exactly are you guys fighting for again? You wouldn't believe what I'm fighting for."

Like an annoying coworker, Parooz attempted to strike up a conversation.







"He thinks I only threatened him. Get a load of this guy."

The samurai cranked his head a few degrees, finally making eye contact with Parooz's radiant leer. The demon grinned, anticipating the Japanese warrior's reply. The mafioso's right horn crept terrifyingly close to the soldier's ear making him feel at knifepoint. The soldier's survival instincts flipped on, slowly opening his mouth to go along with whatever the red-skinned demon befriending him was trying to suggest. However, before he uttered a word, the unspeakable took place. The enigmatic golden boy, the only one who could potentially save him, exploded.

A knife whimsically waved directly in front of the child by a tongue overloaded with the malignant energies it unambiguously accrued. It was a miracle for the boy not to notice how volatile the object humming with virulent forces was. The demon, genuinely bewildered by the light child's actions, winced a little. His opponent failed to move an inch from the proverbial time bomb at his doorstep. Sure, his opponent had an electrical aura around him but nothing about that screamed ample defense to his flame. He detected that much, connecting his senses to the plumes of smoke and haze that filled the domain with his corruption.

Hazardous firework displays of magenta and crimson hues engulfed the boy and his constructs entirely in an eruption sponsored by the flames of hell. These weapons, which the boy was so proud of that he took the time to make thirty with a charging bomb in his face, bolted behind him, zagging in distant directions via the blast. They became an electrical arrow storm of projectiles killing even more of the fleeing Japanese combatants he was perhaps attempting to save.

"Look who's the bad guy now."
Aside from burning at seemingly inconceivable degrees, the force behind the point-blank blast surely blew off the lower limbs of the child and probably more. This baptism of fire and brimstone burned with a malefic force that couldn't be conventionally extinguished. Much separated it from common flame.

Overwhelmed in Parooz's hell, the light child probably felt his electrical energies openly in a struggle with the demon's. It probably felt like his own energy was being burned and reduced to ashes. This was the result of the gangster’s malign flames damning his intended target's aura. It actively attempted to limit the amount of power the boy could feasibly conjure in this injured state. Parooz wanted nothing more than to incinerate all traces of his adversary to insignificant ashes. With his free hand, Parooz's oversized golden cufflinks jangled with his finger wag, taunting the living firewood.

"No no no. How can he say threats are boring and then threaten me with such ridiculous toys."

There was something poetic about the eccentric Parooz commenting about how absurd his opponent was. The Japanese warrior took a long, nervous swallow, looked at the mauve-suited demon, and tittered "yeah, what a hypocrite."







That's it, get on my good side. Perhaps you'll realize that I'm the only one here who can give you what you want. A deal perhaps?

Visibly salivating, just that quick, the demon devised a nefarious scheme to steal the man's soul. Any immediate plans came to a screeching halt however, as the haze alerted the mobster of the torrential bullet storm homing in. At this point, sources of smoke polluted the battlefield. The degrees to which this added to the mobster's reaction time could not be understated, as he'd link his senses to each plume of corrupted haze. He figured fogging up the space between could aid him, so he did just enough so Zane could see his projectiles slowly vanish in the distance like descending rocks in the ocean's murky abyss. Because of how obstructing the view between the fighters became, Zane wouldn't see the mafioso's latest trick which involved sabbatical goat horns erupting from the feet of Parooz winding in the shape of a hulking hand. Serving as a barrier between the light child's projectiles and Parooz. The lighting bolts distilled on impact, giving off a boisterous thunder colliding with the powerful presence of his shield clad in dark energy. Before too many of the arrows could collide with the claw Parooz was long gone.

"I'll be right back." The samurai fell to his knees, eased by the notion of the devil leaving but frightened by the claw inadvertently sheltering him from the onslaught of arrows had no idea would purposely evade him.
The suited devil plunged deep into the earth like an Olympic diver away from the currents, wriggling his body like a worm to escape the deluge of arrows projected at him. He effectively gave them the slips, coating his body in an aura that increased his ability to burn through the soil. While his opponent was attempting to make out what happened, like a jack in the box, Parooz erupted from the charred soil behind the gates, momentarily springing his body towards the light child swinging a cartoonishly large hammer above the boy's head. The head of the hammer, more like a beer keg than a traditional mallet, threatened to squash the boy like an ant under the weight of its dripping glowing barrel boldly embossed 666 Proof - Real Devil’s Moonshine.

“Peek-a-boo!!!”

To not be forgotten, though it was charred to a crisp, a butcher cut of samurai thighs still remained in Zane's wheelhouse. It was the only remains of the samurai Parooz kicked earlier and the eyes and mouth opened back up to greet Zane from the front who was very much a human torch. The light child put up a visible front but the mafia underboss knew he was in pain. He had to give the boy some credit as many would have perished by and become unholy pieces of white charcoal. The burn was consistent, unyielding, in line with the feeling of hell itself. Despite partaking in Parooz's powerful explosion of hell flames, The devil noticed still that the boy had not moved far from his initial spot. In fact, Zane lightly walked in a mini amphitheater of ashen land cursed by the gangster's flames. The same eye and mouth on the samurai's keister greeted him, coughing up ashes and gravel. It's tongue coiled like a chameleon’s, spitting with every syllable as it spoke out.

“Better rid yourself of that flame, bucko. Left unchecked and well…"







Though mafias operated on a strict rule of code, underhanded fighting, especially in a syndicate of demons, was never off the table. Parooz had a documented history of blindsiding individuals whether they'd consider it honorable or not. The idea of fairness never rent a square inch of space in his shrewd mind. This mentality he adopted out of the necessity to survive rubbed many the wrong way. Sepias' abrasive upbringing polished him into the cold piece of obsidian he was always meant to be. This latest trick was a prime example.

Considering the boy had yet to shake his flames, the suited demon assumed they were starting to wear down his opponent. Now was as good of a time as ever to attempt a deceitful haymaker. After revealing his gigantic hammer, the actual danger was curtained behind the physical absurdity of the attack. His opponent tried to escape the physical consequences of the assault by turning the majority of his body into lighting save for his scalp. This was, by all means, a logical counter, as who would want to get flattened by a hammer that size? There were two layers to the attack, however. Aside from it already being risky for Zane to morph his body into lighting because of the devil’s flame, allowing the face of the hammer, the bottom of a glowing keg to touch any part of him with its dripping exterior gaveled his demise.
Embossed “666”, proof of liquor like that shouldn't even be possible. Alcohol maintains a consistent flame when lit at eighty, making it fairly obvious why it was brought out. Considering the child was still on fire, it was a costly idea to allow himself to make contact with Parooz’s maul. The instant the fiend’s hell flame connected with the hammer sopping with mysterious alcohol, the makeshift mallet's face burst into a relentless azure cylindrical inferno. It completely overtook the electrical form of the boy, trapping, and obliterating everything in its down-facing vortex. Left in its wake, a very miniature kola well, molten hot, emanating the same malicious energies that plagued Zane's body.

The mafioso accelerated what was becoming a slow roast of Zane in which he was not patient enough to see through. Parooz threw lighting fluid to morph his flames into an exponentially more powerful beam of concentrated hell energy bent on extinguishing the boy outright.

Because of how resilient Zane's inner light shone, Parooz required the extra fuel to burn out his aura. It rarely happened but Parooz had the sense that the boy had enough vigor to starve off what he dubbed the flames of damnation. Had the demon allowed him to meander longer, the light child may have stumbled upon a solution. The fact that Zane could operate his gates and even taunt the demon after his initial attack gave signs that he was special. True to character, Parooz wouldn't admit this, standing over the trench looking as blasé as ever. Though, in the back of his mind, he knew…
Suddenly gritting his teeth with an alligator's force, a bulging vein protruded from his red-tinted forehead. A terrifying mouth formed on the left side of his face and his horns became more pronounced under his messy ashen hair.

"You fucked up."

The mouth chastised him. Somewhere, if not still here, Zane was still fucking alive and that ate at his core.







It was true, to escape, Zane made some of the demon's energy his but at what cost? In the aftermath of the spiraling vortex of energy, Parooz and his Japanese friend stood there in an awkward showdown to determine what was the next step. In the samurai's eyes, Parooz vanquished his foe, but then he noticed his captor's body language.

The demon angrily shook the empty keg before dumping it down the not-so-bottomless pit. Much heat still existed within the deep pocket, charring the lands even more. It enforced his existing control of the ashen lands of his immediate area. He could feel the light child escape and a multitude of voices let him hear it.

"He's escaping you idiot."
"Why have you not stolen his soul already."
"It's right for the taking."
"Screw that, take both their souls!"
"What if you really can't kill him?"
"You're losing your touch…"

The mafioso's fist clenched as he collectively pulled the annoying extra facial extremities back into his skin. Like a drop of blood flowing down the asymmetrical nostrils of a coke user, they were snorted away for now. He appeared as normal as the word could be applied to a rouge like him. His jaded eyes observed the boy as he pulled his figure above the soil. He could do so simply because the boy emerged within the veil of his corrupted haze. Much of him was the same but Parooz noticed something that endangered the boy far more severely than his bout with the suited demon. His inner light was not the same.

As someone who introduced themselves as lighting, it wasn't far-fetched for the demon to assume light was a crucial part of the child’s existence. With that most likely being true, for the boy's purity, it made more sense for him to die honorably than do what he did to escape. By taking in the very energy that sought to destroy him, the same dreadful aura that attempted to extinguish his light and countless others, Zane rolled dice on his destiny.

"How reckless…"
The demon sneered, knowing from this day the boy would never be the same. No matter how bright he shone, there would always be a layer of darkness within, calling him, effectively endangering his connection to whomever high power he leaned to. Like a dose of heroin, you can't simply forget how it made you feel. In Zane's heart, he could feel the souls of hell tugging at his existence, pleading, begging, burning. But now, much like the demon cross him, there was something about that suffering that felt…satisfying. Forever, Zane would be in search of that first high. The first time he welcomed the malefic hell force into his already withering spirit. The first time he acknowledged he needed the power of hell and not his own prowess to endure. The first time he heard Ealdorman Sarcoen speak to him…

Like a lobotomy, a gravelly disembodied voice drilled into Zane's consciousness.

"I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but I am not to be mistaken for either. I come from a place of eternal suffering and vigor, not God's agape love. This power you have felt is a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal to your spirit which progressively will strengthen with each feeble exercise of your abilities.

So far, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. However, Hell is relentless. You will be tempted beyond your moral means, as I am prophetic. You will be tempted by the agony of your soul. You will be tempted to explore the power which will eternally cause you pain. With that temptation, I will also provide a means of escape, that way you'll be able to endure. May death eat away at your soul, body, and mind until you accept your latent power…

Should you lean towards it again, which you will. Your soul is mine."
The conviction in his tone was alarming. With a knife drawn, Parooz stood unsure of whether to attack his foe or give him insight into the ultimatum he had been dealt. He of all people knew when Ealdorman spoke into your being for the first time, it was often from a place of mercy. A merciful malice that entailed giving a part of yourself to stay a resemblance of who you were prior to that point. Brow up, the red-skinned demon stood frozen.

“The boss doesn't just speak to anyone you know.”

Parooz taunted him, but in a way that had him probably questioning was the demon he inside his mind. It was worse, In a way, they were linked as most devil-like were naturally. If Zane was able to see, he’d notice Parooz never even opened his mouth but communicated directly into his mind…

Parooz felt a shift in equilibrium. He stood there, basking in the buzzing industrial lights, chromatic smoke billowing out his pointed ears. He was descending, but to where? The devil surveyed the room, noting the abrupt transfer in scenery from mere seconds ago. From war-torn feudal lands to now a remarkably large freight elevator traversing a measureless shaft. You couldn’t tell Parooz anything. He was convinced the curator of the nexus simply wanted to piss him off. He barely had time to loosen up at the hub point. Across from Sepias, a mere cat, probably some mimic attempting to lower his guard through innocence. It didn’t do much other than stare off into the distance. It appeared the feline arrived solely for the sake of it and nothing else. If this was his opponent, he certainly has seen weirder. After his bizarre altercation with what seemed like personified lightning, nothing struck the gangster as impossible.

The big cat probably banked on the red-skinned mobster being a fan of wildlife, but in reality, Parooz appreciated a chic fur coat or pelt rug whenever he saw one. It didn't take much detective work to deduct Sepias being on the side of poachers. His wing-tipped boots, whose tongue was actually one of some strange hell cat, alluded to his wicked intentions.

“Careful not to burn it too badly, you’ll ruin the pelt.”

A grating voice creaked out the left side of his chin. Hands-free, he cracked his neck like he had a crook in it. The further he leaned his head to the right, a pulsating tumor bulged out of a knot on his shoulder. The already gag-inducing tumor took it one step beyond with its arrhythmias pulse. With each succeeding heartbeat, a facial feature spawned—first eyes, then a nose, and lastly a multitude of clefting mouths. A nightmarishly disfigured head emerged, babbling incoherent diatribes at Mae and Parooz. At this point, the suited demon resembled a disfigured orthros.
“Fire! Burn! Kill the cat! Fucking do it! Turn it! Tie! Turn it into a Tie!”







"PPPSSSSH! That thing is trying to penetrate your mind."

A muffled voice whispered in such a manner that it could easily be heard by anyone nearby. It came from the mobster's hip, precisely where he stored his trusted pistol. The living weapon opened one of its crust-filled stark yellow eyes, shimming upwards so that it could get a view.

"Really, now? I didn't notice."

Parooz started speaking to his glock to find out how this went undetected but there was a much simpler answer right in front of him. Before he could deduct further, his additional head rammed one its horns into his cheek.

"Ouch!"

Unbeknownst to Parooz, his violent monstrosity of a tumor represented why any attempts to read his mind failed on the spot. A brief gaze into his twisted mind revealed a chaotic space, plagued with hundreds, if not thousands of voices simultaneously arguing in a belligerent rage. It befuddled any chance a psychic could accurately decipher his thoughts without constantly being led astray by the labyrinth of conversations between Parooz's multiple personalities.
This was the reality of Parooz's cursed mind. This was how he thought, how he made decisions for himself in real time. It illustrated how much neural computing power he actually had by merely functioning. Every excess, eye, mouth, nose, head that Parooz managed to detach from his body represented a part of his soul and the multiple consciousness housed within. The only one who habitually decoded his thoughts was Ealdorman.

After literally butting heads and absorbing a few eye pokes, Parooz had enough. He mauled the additional head clean off his shoulders, uprooting it like an enormous turnip. The mafioso tiptoed forward, slotting two fingers in the head’s nose and one in its mouth before skidding it across the freight’s industrial flooring like a bowling ball right at Mae. His form was flintstone-esque, but most importantly effective, as he delivered a strike. Multiple elongating tongues burst from the incoming head’s open mouths like whips, fondling Parooz’s signature stiletto blades. The sweltering heat of the knives, which alone could melt carbon nanotube by close proximity, jousted forward with lethal intent, curving like spears in an attempt to shish-kabob the cat. One attempted to spear the creature into the elevator wall, with the following attempting to constrict its movements in anticipation of the dodge his opponent openly stated it would do.

"Make this interesting and dodge then."

Proudly parading his panther pleat lapels, Parooz found himself dwarfed before a monolithic cat house columbarium. Each urn slot twirled outwards like the winter limbs of a contorted beech. The lingering incense trails of fleeing feline specters caressed his bad-postured figure in an aura laced with loneliness and dread. To Parooz's pleasure, the sweet smell of their suffering whelmed his asymmetrical nostrils. Still, however, he violently whisked away the aroma with his left hand. It was far too sweet and frilly of a scent to have tarrying around in his clothes.

The mobsters' glowing amber sclera worked like hazard lights. Without much effort, he illuminated the surfeit of engraved plaques befogged by the night mist. Mr. Bigglesworth, Felix, Garfield, Sylvester–The chilling list of names Parooz read went on. However, one name before the demon was obstructed by a sticky concoction of what seemed like a clump of litter. Curious, the mobster's ghoulish hand inched forward towards the plaque's silver-plated surface, brushing the display. Before the crumbling residue reached the ground, a cheshire grin filled the mafioso's face at the revelation of a familiar name.

"Mae Mae

They arrived, shortly died.”

"Purrrfection!"

The demon got a kick out of rolling his forked tongue. Sepias couldn't help but admire his own work so he took it one step beyond and liquified the plaque with just the heat of his finger. Grabbing the interment of ashes, he peppered his hands, utilizing the remains as if it were some sort of performance chalk and he was preparing to play a basketball game. With no use for the rest, to any spirit or stray still watching in horror, with his cupped hands, this absolute degenerate slung it upwards into the air like a pregame ritual. As bizarre as this was, In many ways, he was preparing for a contest in his own right as the mobster knew he had yet another round of combat to endure.
The more rounds to pass, the further skilled he assumed his opponent to be, though, if he had another round like the prior, there wasn't much he'd object to. Figuring he had enough fun, Parooz perused the literal catacombs of feline remains, navigating a winding pathway in which countless bombays hissed and swiped their claws angrily at the mobster. Parooz barely gave their leers any real estate as the grandfather's clock’s bell reached his pointed ears. Passing through the sanctum’s corridors, moonlight bathed the demon in a lunar light. Standing in the archway, he noticed the presence of someone approaching from the corresponding courtyard. Instinctually, he began to blend his naturally permeating bog into the low coasting fog in his immediate area. He wanted to see just what exactly was coming but a psychic jolt, caromed off his skull. A sharp message, one that had to be damn near omnipotent to single him out through the vastness of the nexus.

Ealdorman’s message to him was clear. Return to the speakeasy and begin operations on Earth F67x. What the demon was not aware of was how unstable the telepathic signal became due to traveling such a distance. Its telegram was easily intercepted...







Recovering from the psychic shock, the downpouring phantasm of apparitional remains bedazzled Parooz’s senses, alerting the mobster to quite the hellacious scene. Momentarily in a daze, his eyes lit up like a kid in a candy shop as he watched the gangrenous flesh of the keeper snatched off his kneeling feeble bones. The devil had a front-row seat to the spectacle but the jazz music seemingly stopped as he traversed the fog, causing his haunting presence to hover over the now photo-still cats. A single one of his wing-tipped boots went forward and the red sea parted, clearing the way to an individual he assumed created the shower. His leaking fog told him that much.

The demon leer of the underboss analyzed the streetwear-attired blocky individual opposite of him. Even from the view on this end of the courtyard, there was much he didn’t like. For one, he looked like a narc in disguise, and immediately that didn't sit right with him regardless if he was a fed or not. To introduce himself, Parooz reached into his blazer digging excessively for a particular item. Concerned, his slick talking pistol, Barrel-Tone Tony’s stark yellow eyes shot open like he awoke from a nightmare. The gun began to hysterically rattle as its shaky voice lashed out.

“Hey, you're going to use that blasted thing, aren't you? As if you haven’t tormented it enough!”

The pistol shimmied out of Parooz's pin-striped trousers watching in disgust as the mafioso presented what appeared to be a pickle-me-Elmo out of nowhere. It was in a moonshine jar of a special devil’s cut of alcohol with a laminated tag haphazardly taped along its bottom rim reading ‘Do not open.'
“This guy still owes me a couple of wishes.”

Parooz was legitimately enraged. The demon served a wicked fastball in submarine form, hurling the corkscrewing jar toward the man opposite of him. As it got halfway, Barrel-Tone-Tony shot straight forward, right through the jar, shattering it, releasing the wispy astral existence of a powerful Jinn. A torrent of gale winds shot outwards, ripping away much of the fog, overgrowth, and spiritual beings about, sending a few feline spirits and more flying as their cries drowned in the howling gusts. The misty form of the malevolent genie couldn't expand much since the incendiary rounds of the bullets spawned a chain reaction with the supernatural 666-proof moonshine. To the creature's dissent, it morphed into an ifrit bathed in Parooz’s cerulean blaze.

With the turning of Sepias’ clenched right fist, the jinn's body shriveled, condensing into a ball the size of a volleyball now on a collision course with the wedge-shaped man. What wasn’t clear to the booner opposite the mobster was that the ball emitted a daemonical cool flame within a ten-meter radius. Its hidden inferno, capable of smoldering through other forms of energy, intensified the closer an individual was to the core. With an attack like this, the man wouldn't even have to get hit by the glowing ball to feel the hellish might of the heat.

“Hey, that’s not funny, leave him alone, Parooz. I didn’t mean for you to make it worse. You intended for that to happen you asshole. I liked it better when you were a lifeless zombie. Ealdorman should fuck your mind again. Maybe then I could be a weapon for Ixxa or something. Maybe even Merse. He's still alive, isn't he?”







Parooz's watchful eyes blinked sideways, examining the burly figure opposite of him, never taking his eyes off the man with his piercing fog-light vision. While in his windup, he noticed the individual seemed to be waiting for something. Perhaps his opponent knew in baseball there was one well-known fact about pitching. After delivering his pitch, even with his grossly root-like vein-riddled tri and biceps tossing a projectile at generally incomprehensible speeds, Parooz, like any other pitcher, was vulnerable until he regained his footing. In that split second you could hear Parooz's bones and joints grotesquely crack and pop as he contorted his body to move in time. Somehow, his movement was undeterred, and his talon-like feet burst through the expensive boot soles like cleats as he picked up superhuman speed.

His opponent sprung sideways and Parooz, cognizant of the trajectory of a potential counter, kept advancing forward and right to the detective, closing the distance. He had an exceptionally solid view of the man considering the blast of gale winds cleared anything that may have been obstructing his view. Even the sign the map he leaped through instantaneously blew away at the release of the Jinn.

Initially, the mobster assumed the man would aim at him, so he made an effort to stay constantly moving, but his target was Tony, still within the restraints of his belt but watching in genuine terror.
"He's trying to–"

The pistol's words were cut off when the whizzing round eclipsed his body narrowly, scarring the edge of the pistol's slide stop. Tony didn't even see it coming. Parooz's cartoonish "C"-Shaped contorting of his figure, while freakishly maintaining semblance of a stride, saved him by completely overestimating how wide the round possibly was despite Sośe's hip-firing gun. It wasn't reflex, it was the sheer unorthodox nature of his movements which were equal parts nimble and sportaticly chaotic. This mostly likely gave Sośe fits considering how accurate his shot actually was despite it.

Tony was used to firing off the shots, not being a target himself and now he was mad. Relaying a message telepathically to Parooz, it seemingly distracted him from controlling the Jinn.

"I AM BAANIM, THE BOUNDFUL. I WILL NOT BE SOME MERE INSTRUMENT OF BATTLE!"

The unbound body of the genie expanded from a ball, morphing into a form akin to its original. However, its flames plagued existence and all its hazards remained. The raging spirit accelerated like a runaway train on the way to assault Parooz but through Sośe caught in the middle of its blind fury. Its nebulous cloud of fire exploded forward like lighter fluid hitting a grill, approaching in a hugging form about twenty meters wide. Because its inferno was less concentrated out of its ball state, the flames were very much visible but merely jumping to the side would baptize Parooz opponent this time.

As smoke from the inferno wafted into the courtyard again, the gun centric fighter had to deal with the rise in temperature which was not only a threat to him but his ammunition.

It was very possible any rounds inside the barrel of his weapon stock could heat up to the point of ignition temperature for the primer or propellant, causing them to go off unexpectedly. This was especially true for any non railguns he could be carrying, and Sośe could very well discharge on himself.

To make things worse, an enormous switchblade conjured out of a blaze in Parooz's left hand, glimmering in a malignant amount of energy concentrated on just the blade's edge. Mindful of his opponent's drawn barrel and its trajectory, staying clear, he diligently progressed towards his opponent.

Constricted by a bevy of designer straps facilitated by the finest designers in hell, Parooz recognized these hell bound tendrils as vintage chanel. He was familiar with the Nazi sympathizer turned couturier, Coco. Surprisingly, the demon wasn't a fan. As a means of revenge, the second his presence graced the gates of hell, her signature pattern ran through the thinnest layers of his skin like a seal of glyphs. They signified a spell as she attempted to drag him towards her to settle his unbecoming critique of her last collection.

The only way to escape this straight jacket like hold was burn them off but even turning himself into a violet human torch could not yield the force. She was livid, and after fighting Sośe, Parooz wasn't in too jolly of a mood. It felt like he was dragged for an eternity before the ashen haired skull of the devil crashed into the floor before the iconic two-toned Cinderella slipper of the demonic couturier.

Before the mafioso could look up, her voice coming from everywhere but nowhere at once chastised him in a language known to drive mortals to insanity.

"Sepias, I've finally caught you. So elusive, it was almost as if you didn't exist for decades. You should know better than to show your face around here without visiting Moi!

Squirming like larvae in a cocoon, Parooz opened his mouth for a witted retort but he found himself speaking directly to Kynion. He was no longer in hell. At least for now he could take a second to exhale but the way he leered at the curator of the Nexus was the gaze of someone who had been severely blue-balled. Perhaps he sadistically enjoyed what was happening moments ago.

"I never get so much as even a warning…"

After a reptilian blink, the demon's pupils scattered like a broken rack of pool balls. Parooz's mouth foamed, leaking a malodorous miasma laced with kerosene and Eau de Parfums. To his fellow spectators displeasure, the devil's abhorrent wheezing and violent spasming distracted from the final, probably drawing Kyinon's ire. Like a marlin, the devil's straight jacket restrained body joused into the doorstep of Daniel and Tom. Billions of electrical impulses in the depths of his twisted mind fired relentlessly, mirroring the action beyond the scope of the portals, ping-ponging through the endless labyrinth of his gyri.

The mafioso's body was too hot to touch, fatally searing if even a quick attempt to unlatch his bindings bounded by hell occurred. A demon suffering at the feet of mortals was no sad scene, so no sympathy was expected, but if anything, the bizarre sequence of events before them were a sign of something significant. What could cause a malefic entity to virtually have a seizure when he had nearly infinite pools of hell energy to siphon computing prowess from? The terrifying luxury tendons currently binding him to hell allowed for just that. What did that say about this verse in general? The straps loosened on arrival, but now Parooz felt like he was being dragged back. Their power was increasing. The boundless verse that was the nexus, deemed unscalable, impenetrable to outsiders, was vulnerable. Perhaps by the subterfuge of events masquerading as a final. Whether it was carelessness or hubris, obliviousness could lead to oblivion, which wouldn't be so bad in the demon's eyes considering what they put him through prior.

Before Parooz even came to his senses, reminiscing slightly to events not even a day ago, an explosion thrusted him like a blade into the wishmaker. His maleficent frame vibrating like a wet saw with hell sourced energies, highly adaptable to being capable of burning through arcane walls of power by the most ever-present and long-living entities.