PL: 254,822


     "You again!?" A familiar voice would question. If Kamae turned around, he would see Liari's face manifest from the very air within the cavern, piecing together from the either in cubic/rectangular portions. Her boots would touch the ground in a thick, gunky splash, Liari's lips curling into a revolted scowl as she took in both the sight... and smell of the cavern. Oil-like slimy mucus coated the walls, the floors, the demon itself, slowly dripping off the walls as if Kamae had taken more than a couple buckets of fresh paint to the place. What was worse than all that... was the magic, foul and eldritch like a can of sardines fresh off the 300-years-ago shelf opened up since its canning. Its ethereal scent caused the full-grown majin's skin to crawl, her eyes flickering between red and sliver, uncertain what she had walked into.

    "...Disgusting." She decided, turning her nose up at the mess. She looked at the demon whose face, shattered like cheap ceramic, was slowly stitching itself back together. In honesty, she didn't expect to see this... THING outside of his little play-pen in hell. She had simply assumed Janemba had gotten him after she'd never seen him or, perhaps, the ogres had shoved him through the soul-scrubber. He didn't exactly SEEM the type to like all the things the mortal realm had to offer. He was... too weird. So what brought him here...? And why the mess and- ...Wait a second... Something was wrong here. Something was... missing. Liari stared at the back of the twisted thing's head until her gaze drifted... and realized that Kamae's pet giant was nowhere to be seen! Liari smirked at her own perceptiveness, snapping her fingers to signal her brainwave.

    "Left your friend behind, did you?" The majin noted, the slightest hint of razor-sharp sarcasm in her voice. "...Figures. He seemed a little too normal for you. I mean... all this..." She waved a hand at the gunk surrounding them. "...Its a little much, dontcha think?" ...It only just now occurred to her that this... thing had been wounded, that what she was standing in wasn't just one's average, everyday black, oily substance. It could have been blood... blood that the walls and floor of the cavern had been literally painted with. Another shiver of disgust ran up Liari's spine... that WOULD explain the smell...

    "...Ugh... Gross..." She muttered, waving a hand over her face, batting back the stench before it could set in. "...But what are YOU... doing here? Did eternal torment not sit well with you? Did your breakup with your giant boyfriend make you run away? Why are you... on a rock like this?"

WC: 447

    "This..." Liari questioned, her voice a mix of genuine interest... and disgust. "...Is how you HEAL? You spray your gunk all over the place?" The majin couldn't begin to imagine the alien processes going on over the walls and around her boots. If this was how he recovered from damage, she'd HATE to see what it was like when he was genuine wounded. Somehow, she didn't picture it at ALL being sanitary. The demon would then turn to her, his black, weeping sockets somehow burrowing into Liari's eyes... despite having nothing but gunk inside of them. He asked WHY she had followed him and she cocked her head...

    "...I'm pretty sure I got here first." Liari stated, referring to the planet. "The reason I'm here, in this cave, is because you're suddenly here. I couldn't ignore your power... or the smell of it... if I wanted to. You just aren't subtle. ...Though, I assume you know that already." Eyeing up Kamae, Liari couldn't possibly see the shattered-porcelain-faced black-oil-sludge-blooded demon-thing going ANYWHERE without drawing attention! Heck, the only way he could possibly get around town without making a mess would be from teleportation and, even then, there'd probably be a puddle where he last stood! How COULD he survive like that, weeping all that black, oily stuff constantly...? Most humanoids would be dead in MINUTES if they lost that much blood! 

    Liari was somewhat disappointed that the demon seemed less-than-interested in their little parlay, effectively telling her to get to the point or get out in as polite-a-way as something such as he, all eldritch and ugly, was capable of!

    "Well, excuse me, your goopiness..." Liari scoffed, rolling her eyes. "...but I just HAD to see what was going on when I felt your power. I mean... You REALLY don't fit here, do you? You barely look VAGUELY human, let alone like a changeling." Liari grinned, swiping her hand over her face, her features instantly shifting with the passing of her hand to resemble a male changeling! "I however..." She continued her voice lower. "Can change my face..." With another handswipe, her face changed to a unique female changeling's. "...To whatever..." Another hand swipe, her voice and face returning to normal. "...I want. Its a perk of mastering magic." Liari smiled smugly... then sighed, resting her hands against the back of her head and leaning back, doing her best to ignore the shifting of the black goop around her boots as she did so. 

    "...But to answer your question, I came because I'm bored. There. Happy? I didn't think things like you NEEDED to experiment. You have the whole 'I'm-old-and-know-dark-secrets-of-the-eldritch-darkness' schtick going on. You unfathomable types seem to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING." Liari thought back to the old Earthling legends of octopus-headed giants that were so smart, they could think through dimensions, so magical, they twisted universes of space, so unfathomable, even attempting to reach the same wavelength was like for a human child to throw a rock across a planet. Somehow... it Kamae seemed to fit comfortably in that category... if only in appearance. Maybe he was just a baby one-of-those-monsters...?

    "What I wanted was some entertainment... But I guess without your backup-dancer, I'm not getting that... am I?"

WC: 539
TWC: 986

"Oh please. It's no big deal to blow something up." Liari scoffed, brushing aside Kamae's boast. "'Magic so old, it destroys all life it comes in contact with' huh? I can do that by blowing air." She waggled her finger in front of the decrepit, ink-stained face of the demon-thing. "...But to be able to change your face, to manipulate people and make them DO what you want... that takes a finesse your little ;ancient magics' thing is incapable of. I don't need some 'pure-black' nonsense to kill things. YOU, though, need to do something about that face of yours. Its tracking that gunk EVERYWHERE." Once more, the majin would gesture to her surroundings. Somehow, she imagined that this cave, the inside painted with oily, inky gunk, was what it looked like inside the ink cartridge of a well-used pen. ...And it smelled just as foul. 

Kamae would take this moment, as smugly as you please, to explain WHY he was experimenting at all: "Because I'm a scared little man. Scared of the future..." or so Liari recognized he explanation as. He was afraid of change, this man, and was desperate to keep up. What exactly was he afraid of? WHY was he afraid? Did he even know? Were there even answers to these questions? As far as these ones went, Liari would glean no answers from his smug confidence, only that he was determined to kill Liari for... what reason...? Because she humiliated him when she was dead? 

The thought brought a smile to her face.

"Oh, you can try all you want." Liari smirked, pacing back and forth across the oily black room. "...But you see... I won't stay dead for long. Consider the fact I am here. Did you notice the halo above my head when you first met me...?" The majin pointed above her crown, wiggling her finger as if to draw his attention. "...And notice how it's not there anymore...? Have you ever wondered why the people YOU might've killed or who I might've killed haven't come back yet too...? Its because I'm special." Liari grinned, a sinister edge to that last word. "...Something brought me back. I don't know what, I don't know WHO... but something is looking out for me. ...And I'm willing to bet you can't kill me hard enough that it can't bring me back... So let's skip the idle 'I'll kill you' and 'I insult you' chatter. Save it for when you can actually hurt me and I'll take you seriously. Deal?"

Liari would offer thumb's up... then she realized something as old and gunky as he wouldn't understand the gesture. ...There was a certain petty enjoyment she took in knowing something this guy didn't. ...Well, maybe she would let him in on another little secret...

"You know... You really do stink..." Liari noted, her nose scrunching up for emphasis. "...Of Evil. I can practically taste in the air around you, and old and rancid as the black place you came from. Did you know that evil people are REALLY easy to get into the minds of...?" Liari would tap the side of her head and grin, her silver eyes flashing a deep red. "...All it takes is a thought and I'm inside. ...And someone like you...? I could make you dance for me like a puppet on some strings. You can pretend you're all old and special all you want... You can think you're so high and mighty, better than me... but no matter how much you experiment with your goop, you will always be my toy. Please don't forget it... I'd hate to rearrange your parts... And you're so... interestingly put-together as you are now." Liari's grin would then spread wide, as did her arms, opening herself up to the black-blooded demon.

"...So lets do this the easy way for a change, huh? Why don't you do me a favor and work for me willingly? You and your little giant friend? I can promise you... there are more benefits to doing what I tell you the first time. For example... More things to test on than just... this. It must be hard fiddling with your own goop every day, isn't it...? I mean, you gotta draw it out all over the place, splatter it all over the walls, the whole shebang. What if I could provide you with more than that to preform your funky little experiments...? I won't even ask what they are."

WC: 746
TWC: 1732

Kamae might've been having fun with this whole thing... but Liari wasn't. Was this thing mad...? Was he INSANE? Did he not understand what she was telling him...? She could TWIST his little mind any way she wanted using his EVIL as a handhold to PULL herself into his thoughts! She could literally make the darkness in him darker, darker, yet darker and make his shadows dance to her tune! ...And somehow he didn't think that was TERRIFYING!? LOSING HIS AUTONOMY!? When Kamae implied he wasn't the same as her, it turned out he was right... Liari would have lost her MIND at the thought of being a slave again, a puppet on someone else's strings! She was her own person... she HAD to be and yet, this THING... seemed more annoyed, perhaps even amused at her attempts to bring him under her thumb.

    'Because I don't 'ally' with INFERIORS' Liari wanted to shout, the sentiment of Janemba echoing through her mind. What did it take to SCARE these people!? She just wiped a country's worth of people OFF THE FACE OF THE PLANET, and Kamae seemed little more than slightly put-out by her presence. There was bravery... there was arrogance... and then there was blindness, deafness, idiocy, and a whole lot of other insulting words dancing on the tip of the majin's tongue! It was either by chance that these feelings didn't reach Liari's face in time, or fate that this final effort at breaking Kamae's will had popped into her head. Maybe this THING was so brave because he also thought he was special. Maybe he thought that if she blew him away, he'd simply wake up in hell, do his time, and make his way out again as she had. ...And maybe, JUST MAYBE, that was true. Liari had never met anyone she'd killed back in the mortal realm (except that imposter that looked like Callion) but it was more than possible that SOMEONE out there had been chosen as she had been. ...Well, if SURVIVAL, while dead OR alive, meant so much to this THING, perhaps she could assert a fate FAR worse than death.

    "You know...? You're right." Liari conceded after a moment of silent seething. "...I've misjudged you. After all, I found you in hell. Its a comfortable place... when the tyrants aren't in season. For you, it'd be little more than a vacation in a wasteland before life reeled you back in..." Liari paused for effect, her eyes flashing a deep, threatening red. Suddenly, her tentacle would raise up, pointing right at Kamae.



    "Turn into CHOCOLATE." Suddenly, a shockwave-like energy-beam would erupt from the majin's tentacle-tip, enveloping the demon in a second if he couldn't get out of the way! He'd feel his body stiffen and contort most agonizingly, his flesh and goo flattening and hardening, segementing into a rectangular bar-like shape before...

*POOF!*

In a cloud of smoke, Kamae would have transformed into a small bar of DARK chocolate, Liari snatching him out of the air before he could fall into the surrounding goop!

    "This is how I know you're an idiot." Liari scoffed, juggling the chocolate bar between her hands. "You lived for how long...? Since forever, I think you said...? And you don't know how Majin Absorption works...?" Liari would catch the chocolate mid-toss out of the air, holding it up to her face and licking her lips. "...The best part is that they don't DIE when I eat them. They go right here..." Liari patted her belly with her free hand... "Then here..." She then lightly tapped the side of her head with her finger. "First, I get to eat you. I get to smash you apart with my teeth and you get to feel every little bit of it... just as how I know you can hear me speaking now. Next, your body gets entrapped and entombed within my mind inside of a 'People pod' where your mind, emotions, identity are scrubbed for anything I judge useful. Your magics, your powers, everything you are... at my command." ...And now for the fibbing. "...Everything I DON'T like about you... simply fades away. Gone. Consumed and absorbed and dissipated as if you never even existed. Not even death itself will claim you because, technically, you're still inside..." She patted her stomach again. "You will be digested a bit at a time. You will become as much as a sandwich is to me: a satisfaction to my hunger and then... nothing at all... Not even a soul. You will be inside forever... and you will never even know it."  Liari tightened her grip around the bar. feeling the chocolate tremble and crack under her grip... before she tossed it in front of her and zapped it again with her tentacle.

    "Turn back... to normal." Liari muttered. If Kamae had been turned into chocolate, in the first place, he'd reappear back into his full, gruesome self. The majin would loom over him, her tentacles reaching out for the demon like an octopus poised to grab its prey. 

    "Alliances are for equals. Companions are for friends. You... and YOUR friend will be my servants... or my snacks." Liari licked her lips again, eyes alight with anticipation. "...Serve me like you know you have to... Or I'll simply eat you and that giant-man and you will serve me as food. Decide." Liari paused dramatically again. "...Please. You have 5 seconds."

"Five..." Liari began, leaning back casually, holding up her hand with all digits erect for the demon to see!

"Four..." The thumb folds in.

"Three..."


WC: 932
TWC: 2664

    He might've been irritating... and he might've been arrogant... but Kamae wasn't fool enough to still defy her after such a display. if fear was possible upon a face so twisted, the demon displayed it enough that the majin could pick up on it. His human-like body trembled in place as if it hadn't yet understood its reformation back into its natural state, his sunken-pit-eyes alight with the grim realization of helplessness, his form having dropped into a desperate kneeling position in hopes that it would satisfy that tyrant genie. Liari smirked, striding up to the thing so that she stood well over him... before kneeling down on the balls of her feet so that she crouched roughly eye-to-eye with Kamae.

    "Do you finally get it now?" Liari questioned, reaching out for the demon... and then, once again realizing how gross and slimy his flesh was, retracted her hand, instead using it to point at herself with her thumb. "...I am the one in control. I make the rules... Follow them, and you'll be fine... BETTER than fine... I'll make sure you are comfortable... whatever that means to something like you."  She then extended a finger, the tip jabbing a half-inch away from the bridge of his nose between his eyes. If he looked closely, he could see the faint sparkle of ki coagulating at the tip of her fingernail.

    "...Betray me, and I'll find some way to make everything I told you more painful, agonizing, and unbearable than it sounds. I'll dedicate more time than you deserve to making what passes for your life a living hell. I promise you... You will NOT have fun if you turn your back on ME." ...The majin would then smile once more with sunshine, as if nothing threatening of vaguely frustrating had happened at all! "NOW! Get up! I have your first job ready for you!" Liari bounced back up to her full height, gesturing to Kamae to climb out of his muck and stand with her. If he did so, the majin would smile wider. "Your first objective is to get stronger. MUCH stronger. Maybe..." She wiggled her hand as if attempting to balance it in the air. "...Roughly three-to-four times stronger than you are right now...? Once you've done that... there's another planet I want you to go to. Have you ever heard of the world called 'Namek...?'" 

    Liari paused, waiting for an answer.

    "It somewhere at the edge of the galaxy. It's a wonder what you can find in the old computers here, what data they have on the layout of important planetoids. Namek, you see, has been a part of all kinds of strange phenomena. It was where those green men come from... and some say its the source of untold magical powers. There's even rumors that two gods of Earth originated from there. Something tells me that planet is gonna be important one day. I want you, once you've become as strong as I've asked, to go there and take it. Don't KILL everything on it. I may have a use or two for the poeple on it... but I want you to take it. Assert yourself as some kind of ruler and hold dominion over it. Then send word back to me once you have. You may take your friend with you if you wish. In fact, it would be better if you did. After all, two conquering warlords are better than one, hm...?" She winked playfully as if she were joking. "...Once you've done that, phase two will begin and we can start REALLY getting to work!"

WC: 602
TWC: 3266