Alongside a dirt road at the border of Guardia and Fa'Diel, a familiar white cat-like creature sat in wait, surveying the southern landscape that was the northern entrance of the Sulfataska mountains. Though he was aware of the threat that was now looming, it wasn't his place to spring into action; the alert it would bring from any nearby Contracts would have to suffice, and the sooner, the better. A Witch that was newly awakened was the easiest sort, even if it didn't produce quite the... effect, per se, that Kyuubey desired. But oh well.

Alcatraz's sneakers hit the ground below his feel. He had his hands in his pockets as he casually walked, slouched over a bit, following the signal his soul gem gave him. He kept walking until his Soul Gem seemed to stop shining more and looked around with his blazened eyes. A greif seed left on the ground nearby. "Pfft. Some asshole didn't even bother collecting it. Easy pickings." He walked over to the greif seed, ready to pick it up for himself.

As Alcatraz reaches for the lost gem, a wave of black energy expands outward from it in a small burst! His Soul Gem shines brilliantly in response to it, as if beckoning him to utilize it for its intended purpose. Nearby, Kyuubey chuckles in a neutral, non-malicious manner. "Don't be overconfident. If you don't appreciate your power, you'll wind up dead sooner than I think you prefer." His red eyes beam upon both Alcatraz and the glimmering seed, which reverberates with dark energy.

"Well well well, if it isn't he head honcho himself?" Alcatraz hadn't noticed Kyuubey nearby when he was looking. He glanced at the Soul Gem on his chain and back at the Grief Seed. He picked up his Gem and shot a look at Kyuubey that should have been a smile. "Well, you're the boss!" With a confident chuckle, Alcatraz held out his hand and activated his powers.

Smoke burst forth from Alcatraz, encircling his body as it wrapped around his skin. Slowly, it solidified into his new outfit. His shoes were replaced with black dress shoes, and he found himself wearing a pinstriped suit traditional of bootleggers. On his head fell a matching black fedora, and his soul gem reformed into a stylish pumpkin shaped broach above his breast pocket.

When the transformation was complete, Alcatraz picked up his switchblade knife and looked down at the Greif seed once more. "Showtime." With that, he reached forth towards the glistening Grief Seed.

He wouldn't need to, really; as soon as the lone seed senses the presence of a transformed Wishborn, the entire world seems to suddenly bend inward and distort; the mountain range gives way to darkness and the grass disintegrates, colors from both mixing together and forming a new dimension around Alcatraz as he disappears from the 'real world,' and instead becomes a part of...


Nightmare Labyrinth - Empty Staircase
The walls forming the 'room' of this stairwell are rotten-looking and
old, but have a strange ethereal quality to them, given off by the
motion-sickness-inducing swirl of various brown hues that color them. The
stairs themselves do not look any safer, and more than one appears to be
missing entirely, showcasing a black pit of inky darkness far below,
accented with deep purples that generate a mobile abyss. While
well-intended, the handrail that one could support themselves on during
their ascension is split in the middle and broken in two, threatening to
collapse entirely at the barest amount of pressure placed upon it. Above,
there appears to be no ceiling; just more of that same black abyss, clouding
the world and separating this depressing dimension from the world outside.

...an empty looking staircase suddenly fills the immediate area, surrounded by walls on all sides and giving no semblence of an exit.

A despairing pressure fills the air, almost tangible in its ability to bear down on the living that step foot inside this desolate place. From somewhere nearby, the sound of faint laughing can be heard.

Alcatraz Alcatraz was caught by surprise as he was shoved into the new place, nearly dropping his blade. He looked around to see almost nothing of use to him, nor anything resembling something he needed to fight. Perfect. He stared at the staircase, and put one foot forward to climb it, then another. In a situation like the, the only direction to go... is up.

The staircase creaks loudly under the suavely-dressed pumpkinhead's weight, but holds; the general silence of the area, however, does not, and several dozen sets of skittering limbs can be heard from behind the walls nearby, both far-sounding and near, as the sight of a large room gradually makes itself known to Alcatraz, at the top of the stairs...

Nightmare Labyrinth - Attic
Look at all this junk! Piles upon piles of stacked boxes, crates, even a
few barrels and rusty oil drums have been left forlornly up inside this
dusty, empty old attic. Cobwebs decorate each and every corner of the
incredibly spacious room, and a single small window allows visibility of the
aforementioned abyss outside, spread far in all directions. Several spots
on the walls are marred and notched, and an open-knifed switchblade is
embedded in the floor just under the window, pinning a ripped piece of some
kind of cloth to the dirty floorboards.

A sudden crash tears through the atmosphere as a small box hits the ground, seemingly either fallen (or pushed?) over from atop one of the other stacks of things, spilling the contents all over the floor, which seem to be... knives. Lots and lots of knives, of all sorts. Butter knives, steak knives, hunting knives, more pocketknives and switchblades; a girlish giggle can be heard again, much more audibly this time, but still not within sight.

Alcatraz saw a familiar sight to him. Knives, everywhere. Many of them he'd used before, and he had the scars to prove it. Whoever that giggled belonged to, the bitch was fighting in the wrong territory. One knife however caught his interest, a switchblade holding a peice of cloth on the floor. While the others fell, that one was placed there purposely. Alcatraz walked over to the window to examine the pinned item.

The switchblade seems to have torn the cloth it now pins from someone's dress; there is the hint of a floral design on what tiny bit of cloth it holds. One of the hunting knives suddenly but gradually floats into the air behind Alcatraz, wobbling unsteadily, but rising and pointing its dirty edge point-first at his back, waiting...

Another female giggle echoes through the room, sounding very close.

Alcatraz heard some more clattering behind him, followed by the cheerful childlike voice of a girl. One of the knives had moved, but be who or what he didn't know. For a moment, he sat there, listening to the clatter cease and the laughing rise, until he made his movement. With extreme speed he turned around and noticed the hunting knife, and just as quickly appeared on the other side of it through a puff of smoke. "Try harder."

At the request to do so, no less than fifteen individual knives all simultaneously rise into the air around him, pointing their respective edges in his direction, some of which are quite close to his face. The girly voice seems to pout, offering a whimper. "What fun is this game if you don't even try to come find me? I don't wanna have to kill you so soon, you just got here!""

The voice, now actually speaking, -sounds- like it's coming from behind one of the boxes. But, then again, there are a lot of them. It's a big room, after all.

Alcatraz didn't move. He merely nodded. "Alright. Have it your way. Put the knives down, I'll count to ten." He sounded rather confident in what he was saying. "I'm sure you've played this game before? On ten, you hide and I'll seek." He poked one of the knives with his finger playfully, moving it slightly to the side. "Unless you're scared."

"Yay!" The squeal made evident the happiness in her voice, and simultaneous to this, the knives all promptly clatter to the ground, lifeless. "Okay, go!"

The source of the voice is difficult to pinpoint; every other word seems to come from a different location now, as if she were deciding where exactly she wanted to be.

Alcatraz was surprised at how easy it was to get out of that situation. With his traditional smoke-filled sigh he put his arm in front of his glowing eyes. "One... Two... Three... Four..." Each number was given tensly. He knew that if he didn't play along there was a good chance he'd die. "Five... Six... Seven... Eight...." His counting got slower as his breaths became deeper, "...Nine... TEN! Ready or not, here I come!"

"Okay, I'm hiding! Come find me! Then we'll play again! And again! And you can stayhere forever, with me! Yaa~aay!" The sound of her voice is... very close. Like, right on the other side of a tall stack of boxes next to Alcatraz. "Come find me!"

Alcatraz ran right towards the source of the voice. He let out a smokescreen to try to stop her from running away and began climbing on top of a stack of boxes to look over on the other side. "You never told me your name, girl. You have one these days?" He needed to keep her talking so he could pinpoint her exactly.

"I forgot. In fact, I forgot a lot of things. And I think I keep forgetting things all the time, too. It's sad." She actually sounded sad, too. On the other side of the boxes, the faint outline of a face can be made, hunkered down near the floor. "I think I'm already starting to forget something else." A couple of knives on the floor behind Alcatraz wobble and come to life again, rising into the air... "What did they call it again? 'Compassion'? It's really dark, and hard to keep track of things." The face seems to grin, and the glint of many, many rows of sharp teeth can be seen amidst the dark silhouette.

"You'll forget, too, when you become like me... it always happens."

"I'm used to it," Alcatraz said. He really didn't want to attack a little girl, but, now that he saw her smile, his regret was erased. "But I think when I become like you I'll do something cooler than hide and seek." Alcatraz's carved face could be seen glowing behind the smoke he had created. With an almost unexpected attack, he jumped right down closer to the girl's silhouette, knife in hand, ready to carve her jaw right off.

As Alcatraz lunges down at her face, the girl propels herself toward him, face-first, directly in line of the attack... and through the smoke reveals a very centipede-like body covered in fine hairs, with the only part of her even remotely human is the face of a teenage girl, albeit with very inhuman teeth. The blade of his knife plunges into the lower half of her face, issuing forth a viscous sort of black fluid as she tries to collide with him and force him backward, into the path of several knives which are hovering in the air, forming a line of impaling instruments just a few feet behind him.

She gurgles loosely as the knife cuts into her face, with a twisted sort of laugh. "You found me!"

Alcatraz looked in horror as the creature he was fighting revealed themselves. He tried to cut deeper, but, couldn't quite get as far as the critical wound he wanted to cause. Before Alcatraz could be thrown into the knives, however, he disappeared, leaving an ever growing cloud of smoke behind him. He hid behind a stack of boxes away from her. "I won. Now you get to try to find me!" he shouted, pulling out his handgun.

The centipede-girl-thing lands with a loud thud on the ground, oozing black fluid from her lower face as she grins a wide grin. Several more knives float into the air to join the previous few before. "That sounds fun! But I have lots of eyes." Several boxes suddenly burst open, as many, many knives all float of of respective containers and into the air, hoving in place. "Is that even fair for you? I don't really know any better." Within a bar minute, the air is filled with at least a hundred or so pointy blades, all aimed at various and completely random spots around the room. She seems to look around, herself, still grinning widely.

"What fun is this game when you don't even try to find me?" Alcatraz said, trying to mimic her voice pattern. Hopefully, his smokescreen could conceal him long enough for him to keep talking. He needed to kill her herself these knives would only waste his time. "I don't wanna have to kill you so soon, I just found you!"

A horrible grimace suddenly takes over her face, and she growls menacingly; the change is quick and quite dramatic, as every single knife in the air suddenly goes loose, flying in random directions and embedding themselves in every surface, wall and crate alike, including two that nail the ground directly in front of Alcatraz. "I don't like being mocked! That's what got my other friend killed! Everybody's always PICKING ON ME!" Crates explode and burst open on all sides, as multiple hundreds of gleaming knives take to the air, forming a deadly sheet of edged metal in the air all around!

The Witch herself knocks over a crate nearby, spilling it and the crates on top of it to the ground, where she fumes and pouts without going anywhere.

Alcatraz held his ground as the knives started flying. "I know." He took a step forward, then another step. "I grew up being picked on. I was the kid who never had any friends. A loner, a street urchin on top of it all..." He moved forward, trying to change his voice to be compassionate as he moved closer. "But, that's okay. Sometimes we just need to let things go..." He stopped a few feet away from her and held his gun in front of him, straight arm, sideways. "I'm sorry." He pulled the trigger.

The Witch turns to retaliate at the sound of his voice, but the rage she spewed forth returned her senses to her barely too late; with a shriek of dismay cut short, the bullet connects with her face amidst a spray of thick black blood, and she crumples to the floor with a plethoria of twitching from several of her segmented legs. As she hits the ground, the knives all fall to the ground as well, but as unfortunate as that might be for Alcatraz, they only manage to fall a few feet... before zipping out of existence with a flash of nearly-blinding white light! The witch's legs continue to twitch for several more moments, but then they, too, grow still.

Alcatraz fished his switchblade out of her jaw and placed his gun back in his pocket. If he could, he would have grinned at the sight of his success. "Well then, guess now you know not to piss me off," He said victoriously. He placed his hands in his pockets and lightly kicked the corpse, seeing if it moved. "Sweet dreams, motherfucker."

The witch doesn't move, but something else does; a ray of light suddenly cuts through the window, shining into the room! It is quickly followed by another that splits open one of the walls, and then another, from the ceiling! In short order, the room itself begins to break apart and become filled with white light, blinding Alcatraz in all senses as the dimension gradually fades away without its host, and the world gradually takes on a new shape...!

...and the return to the border of Guardia, where the grass wafts gently in the breeze and the Sulfataska mountain range is in plain sight. Overhead, a glittering black gem drops in from out of nowhere, nestling itself snugly in a tufe of grass.

Kyuubey himself is nowhere to be seen at this point.

As if smoke around him simply rose off of his body, Alcatraz returned to his normal street clothes. The Greif Seed on the ground caught his eye nearly immediately, and he did not hesitate to pick up and stash his prize. "Guess this is what I can look forward too," he told himself. He began to walk back down the rode, hoping to hit a town. Times like this, Alcatraz really wished he could whistle.