>>34162144
Ha ha! Time for nightmares!

Some dancing devils just want to watch the world burn.

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The sandy path stretches before you into infinity, a thin, dead ribbon of white vanishing into the dark void.

“Does this come out somewhere?” you ask Mado softly.

“It used to,” she replies. “But I don't think it will, this, time.”

Nothing more needs be said – you can both feel it. After the sprawling, twisted wilderness, the deep, dark wood and the maze within a maze, at last you've come to the final stretch, the home run. You and your young companion have faced your long-lost regrets. All that remains is your most intimate nightmare, your heart of darkness.

And, before you're through, a reckoning with the enemy who's dogged your footsteps every inch of the way; the one your mysterious friend in the cop car charged you with defeating.

The Dancer.

So what do people think the thing with Monoe from last thread was? Monoko is usually characterized as being sisters with Monoe in fan theories, but Mado identified Monoko as being her sister. So does that mean Monoe is, as well? The comment about people believe what Monoe says despite never believing Mado could fit into that, too. There's definitely implications of some problems with Mado's parents, possibly abuse, perhaps she has a sister that's complicit in whatever is being done to her.

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You gave up on tracking time long ago. The Dream is vivid and real, no (mercifully) fuzzy perception, no smooth, mysterious transitions between scenes to blunt the horrors, but percpetions of time vary widely based on your emotions, and they've been riding a non-stop rollercoaster of adrenaline, fear and desperation since you woke up in the Dark World. You can only put one foot before the other, following the infinite white ribbon.

So when Madotsuki speaks up, you've no idea how long she's been pondering her words.

“Stark,” she says cautiously. “Can I ask you something?”

Something in her tone kills half-a-dozen wisecracks in your throat; the question feels delicate, like a painted eggshell. “Sure.”

“The smokejumper,” she starts, then pauses again, weighing her words. “Do you remember how you parted?”

You quirk an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Did you last see each other... on... good terms?”

The question sinks into your mind like a dark dye, spreading and rolling into the depths. Down Here you can't remember any details... or any rationalizations, for that matter. There's only the emotions, the ones that come welling from your soul when some sight or sound uncaps the well. “I...”

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“It's okay-”

“No, no,” you hush her. “I want to tell, I'm just... trying to put it together.” You think back to the burnt valley in the woods, descending through the Dark Gates. The parachute, ruffling softly as it bore you and Mado to safety from the dragon. And the flight through the old, quiet woods, in Windmill World; the guilt that gnawed at you as you set the backburn.

“I remember setting a back-burn,” you tell her. “But I also remember-” the thunder of roaring angels vibrating in your soul as they smote the flame “-the airdrop from the water bomber. Maybe they didn't happen at the same time... or maybe they did. All I know is, someone that I cared about, a lot, died in a burnover, inside his fire shelter. And-”

you lit the fire

“-it... it might have been-”

you're really good at lighting fires aren't you Stark

“-might have been my-”

burned those fucks real good in the tunnels didn't you, real man-killer fire wasn't it

>It might have been my own escape fire that caught him, by accident.
>It might have been my own escape fire that caught him – because I was selfish, and wanted to live.
>It might have been my fault... somehow, I don't remember. (Lie.)

>>34162851
>It might have been my own escape fire that caught him – because I was selfish, and wanted to live.

>>34162851
>>It might have been my own escape fire that caught him – because I was selfish, and wanted to live.

>>34162851
>It might have been my own escape fire that caught him – because I was selfish, and wanted to live.

>>34162851
>>It might have been my own escape fire that caught him – because I was selfish, and wanted to live.

>>34162851
>It might have been my own escape fire that caught him, by accident.
Look, acknowledging that out feelings of guilt are legitimate is the right thing to do. But assigning blame to ourselves so quickly is going to shift the dreamworld on us. I just know that it's going to wind up feeding the Dancer's next attack on us by corrupting our feelings of reassurance from the Smokejumper. Let's admit that the scenario that killed him was our fault, but don't ascribe and sort of selfishness to our actions.

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>>34163134
>just know that it's going to wind up feeding the Dancer's next attack on us by corrupting our feelings of reassurance from the Smokejumper.
Stop metagaming you fag

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The words are choking in your throat, a truth too heavy to dislodge. A heavy, miserable weight is growing in your chest; a heart burdened by sin – and you know it. The Smokejumper seems to have forgiven you, but you're not sure you'll ever forgive yourself.

But Madotsuki – quiet Madotsuki, with the hard looks that cover warm brown eyes, like burning oil slicks above deep water – is actually asking. She wants to know.

And if anyone's earned the right to ask, its her.

“It might have been my own escape fire that caught him,” you say softly, your voice breaking. “I... might have killed him, because I was selfish and trusted the flame the killer the fire the ENEMY and I wanted to live.”

Mado's hand suddenly wrings yours, almost painfully tight. “Is it just your memory of him, Stark? Forgiving you, because that's what you want? Or is he... actually here?”

“I think he is,” you say softly. “The Dancer that's haunting us – and that cop with his Da Vinci Code Seventies Edition shit. There's no way that's local. It doesn't *feel* right.

Mado says nothing, but her pace picks up. Imperceptibly at first, then faster and faster, till she's power-walking like a person barely restraining themselves from a full run.

>>34163234
It's not metagaming. You think Stark hasn't learned by now that getting caught up in negative emotions is dangerous in this place?

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Ahead, something catches your eye – a speck of color beside the white path. Something small, and conical, and pink. Before you've fully registered it, Madotsuki has slipped your grasp, bolting ahead swift as the wind. You launch yourself into a dead run, struggling to keep up with the slender girl as she eats up the distance, her arms pumping wildly. Even twenty feet behind her you can hear her labored breathing, some kind of word or name escaping with every ragged exhalation as she belts down the sandy path.

Your muscles are beginning to burn with the exertion of a long run before you manage to close the distance, but Madotsuki is still trucking, despite the obvious exhaustion wilting her young frame. Ahead the pink cone has been joined by another on the opposite side, and another. By the time Madotusuki finally slows to a quick walk, wheezing all the while, the path is well-lined by the little pink cones, a few missing here and there like knocked-out teeth. You peer ahead, utterly confused at the cheerful, pink cones in this horribly bleak place.

You're about to ask Mado what it means when something catches your eye up ahead – a tiny green dot bobbing on the path. Mado spots it an instant later, and she's off like a shot, her exhaustion forgotten as she flings herself forward with the shaking steps of the desperate. You belatedly follow, your axe starting to feel heavy for the first time in memory as you labor to keep pace. Soon the dot resolves itself into a person, then a person with blonde hair, then a blonde ponytail as the owner ambles towards you.

Madotsuki lets out a heart-rending cry that strikes you to the quick; a sound of longing and desire you'd never have expected from the dour, serious girl. She races up to the newcomer, then halts suddenly at safe remove to tremble there, afraid to go on.

>>34163630
Yeah, this is going to end badly. Axe at the ready, Stark. Axe at the ready.

>>34163630
Oh boy

>>34163630
I have a bad feeling...

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The newcomer's a girl wearing a green shirt, blonde ponytail and a blank expression. She halts some distance from Madotsuki and waits, impassive.

“P-p-poniko?” Mado stammers between wheezes and tears. “P-poniko?”

The blonde girl remains still, staring down the path past you.

Madotsuki seems to melt before your eyes, all strength dripping from her frame at once as she falls back on her calves. “PONIKO!” -oniko -niko -ko! she screams desperately. “PONIKNO, ITS ME! ITS ME! PONIKO!”

The blonde girl refuses to reply.

Madotsuki pitches forward onto hands and knees, and shuffles an inch closer, her voice seeming to shake apart. “Puhniko... P-p-p-pooooh-n-nu-ee-k-oh,” she mewls helplessly as she forces herself another inch forward, her trembling body betraying her as her desperation clashes with mortal fear.

You remember the sharp, stabbing terror as the Smokejumper reached up towards your face, your certainty that he'd pop your skull like a melon as punishment for your heavy sins.

And the sad, mournful sigh he emitted instead.

The cross he traced in ash; benediction upon your brow.

>Help Mado up. She needs to do this.
>Go to her side, but don't let the girl close.

>>34163900
>Help Mado up. She needs to do this.

>>34163900
>Help Mado up. She needs to do this.

>>34163900
>>Help Mado up. She needs to do this.

>>34163900
>>Help Mado up. She needs to do this.
Let's flick the light switch!

>>34163900
>Help Mado up. She needs to do this.

>>34163900

>>Help Mado up. She needs to do this.

Dammit...

>>34163900
>Help Mado up. She needs to do this.

Infinite worry.

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It might still be a trap, you know, another dweomer woven by the Dancer. It might be a lurking nightmare entirely of Madotsuki's creations. Monsters, Jim. Monsters from the Id. But whatever it is, its a battle nobody can fight for her.

But as you've done since you met her, you can help her reach it.

She's all but collapsed when you reach her, gently wrapping an arm around her waist and easily lifting her up with a faint whirr of exertion. She turns to bury her face in your jacket, clinging to you helplessly as she weeps.

“Come,” you tell her softly. “I'll be right here.”

She leans on you, but in truth you literally carry her forward, her feet barely brushing the sand as you advance with her slung in one arm, the other bearing your axe. When you're within arms reach of the blonde girl, something seems to clear in her eyes, and her pupils finally focus.

“... aaah...” she breathes faintly, as if half-remembered words drift just out of reach. She takes a faltering step forward.

Mado lunges from your arm and into the taller girl, flinging her arms around her neck. She weeps into the girl's green sweater helplessly, mumbling incoherently for a minute. The blonde girl – Poniko, you presume – haltingly returns the gesture, then tucks her face against Madotsuki's neck as her arms tighten possessively.

“Is it you, Poniko? Did you find me? Please. Please say something, *please...*”

You stand by, waiting, silent, your axe at the ready.

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Madotsuki seems to slump, her strength spent at last. Poniko lowers her slowly till they're both kneeling, still embracing closely as Mado murmurs against the blonde's collar.

“It doesn't matter,” she breathes. “I- I have to say it, like – like Stark did, even if I duhn wanna...”

You feel your chest constrict as a confused objection bounces around your mind searching for phrasing – its not the same, not for her, its just not the same -

“I w-w-as s-s-cared,” she whispers with such quiet terror that you shiver involuntarily. “I s-s-still d-don't know w-w-why you- you-” she sobs again, and for another minute all she can do is weep with the miserable “hic-hic-hics” only true misery can elicit. Poniko presses a hand into Madotsuki's brown hair gently, cradling her closer.

“I w-wanted to l-live,” she whispers, and something twists in your soul Mado no, “-but you're the only reason I *was* still living and I couldn't see that, I leaned on you too much, I was selfish-”

NO, DAMMIT, NO-

“-but then it happened and I didn't, I don't, I – I just don't *know* but I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I miss you so much I love you I love you I LOVE YOU, PONIKO I'M SO SORRY!” Her cries echo through the void, empty, tragic and alone, but right, somehow – the echoes reverberate just right, like music in a concert hall.

“I was scared to see you again,” Mado continues miserably. “Afraid of what... came after. Afraid you hated me.” She moves her lips to press against Poniko's ear, and whispers one last thing – something gentle, and sad, and sweet.

And that's when you see the kitchen knife gleam in the pale light as Mado raises it above Poniko's back.

>WHAT THE *FUCK* SERIOUSLY GOD DAMMIT
>THIS IS HOW IT HAS TO BE

>>34164808
>>WHAT THE *FUCK* SERIOUSLY GOD DAMMIT

>>34164808
>WHAT THE *FUCK* SERIOUSLY GOD DAMMIT
"Mado, you clearly took the wrong lesson from our conversation."

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>>34164808
>>THIS IS HOW IT HAS TO BE

>>34164808
>THIS IS HOW IT HAS TO BE

>what I saw for the second option
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcpGIVbPYrI
I'm sorry.

>>34164808

>WHAT THE *FUCK* SERIOUSLY GOD DAMMIT

ay yooo wadda fuck man?

>>34164808
>WHAT THE *FUCK* SERIOUSLY GOD DAMMIT

>>34164808
>WHAT THE *FUCK* SERIOUSLY GOD DAMMIT

MADO, YOU STUPID SHIT! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL BOTH OF YOU?

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>theme: http://tindeck.com/listen/jkpa >Demons and Wizards: Wicked Witch Slow Version.

Your hand is wrapped around Madotsuki's delicate wrist before you realize you're moving, alarm and guilt surging through your system. “Mado, what the hell!?” you cry.

She turns her tear-streaked face up to you, and shakes her head. “It has to be this way, Stark,” she whispers.

“No!” you object. “Don't – just because I-”

“Its not that,” she says softly. Poniko is still hugging Madotsuki close, oblivious to the argument. “The blame... the guilt doesn't matter, Stark. What's done is done, and we've got to accept that we did it. We must take responsibility for what we've done.”

“B-but, Mado,” you stammer. “It's... its your friend, she came for you-”

“Like yours did,” she whispers. “But you still lit that fire in the field, didn't you?”

Your heart sinks into your stomach so fast you feel the world sway a bit. You shake your head violently, trying to cast it out as you murmur “no, no, Mado, no, I had to, for YOU, I had to-”

“What about your friend?” she asks softly.

“HE'S ALEADY DEAD!” you cry, the damning words echoing through the dark.

She lowers the knife, and tucks her face against Poniko's neck again, inhaling deeply. “Yeah,” she says miserably. “They are... and we killed them-”

“You didn't-”

“I did,” she says, misery dripping from her voice. She turns the knife about, letting the bright luminance of the path play along the cold steel. “I ran, to the kitchen. Grabbed a knife. And... I struck. And struck. And struck,” her voice cracks, “so many times, Stark, I couldn't even see, I was just slashing around I was so scared-” her voice seems to solidify, granite and grave. “-but I *did* it, Stark, and I've... I've got to accept that. I've got to let go.”

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>>34165787

“This isn't the same,” you say, feeling the words true in your gut even as they rattle feebly in your ears. “This is torturing yourself, Mado. You've got to let it go. The knife, the girl – let it *go.*”

Mado thinks about it, clinging to her friend gently. The knife comes up again, poised and ready... and at last, at long last, Madotsuki drops it.

“You're right,” she says softly. “That's... this is... not how to do it.” She pulls away from Poniko, the blonde girl releasing the embrace reluctantly. She kneels before her friend, tears streaming down her face from closed eyes. For the first time in your association, her brow is untensed and her mouth relaxed. With a start, you realize she's... actually quite pretty, when she's not, well, herself. She lowers her head to Poniko in supplication.

“This time... this time I'll do it right. The way I should have. For her.”

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That's about when she Stops you.

You feel your muscles melt as the nerves shut off, the sound of your limp body hitting the ground with a barely-audible *thump* that doesn't even have the grace to echo. In Mado's hand glows the tiny demon's eye of the Stoplight, unblinking and undeniable.

You hurl your mind against your body, smashing and clawing at the cage, your entire soul thrumming with the scream. Distantly you hear the black respond, the deep, sonorous singing that you'd tuned out an hour ago now changing pitch, warbling faintly with your mad cries.

Above you, Madotsuki's produced her knife, and she's reversing the point, gripping the handle in both hands. You scream at your body to move, move, move MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE YOU MOTHERFUCKER MOVE, all your fears and doubts burned away by that horrible need, that ripping, gutting need to do something and do it NOW. You shovel coal into that furnace without pause or heed; all your promises and hopes and dreams and identity and everything, something, anything to get the boiler cooking and your body fucking moving *now*-

Mado pauses, the blade pointed directly at her throat. She tilts her head back, tears trickling down her pretty, serene face. She takes a last, steadying breath, and plunges it home.

>>34166144
NO!!!

>>34166144
Oh god. I hope the Cross of St. Florian stops that. It is a symbol of forgiveness for your sins and continuing on, so it might save her.

>>34166144
Things are starting to escalate....

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>>34166144

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>>34166144

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The void screams as the blade pierces flesh, an agonized undertone scratching along your spine as the throat of it roars like a hurricane, single-minded and massive and absolute as the sunrise. The darkness reverberates as you drum upon it with your soul, trying, trying, trying to make them listen, to make Madotsuki *listen.*

But it was your body that obeyed.

Your arm dangles from a limp wrist, suspended by a puppetmaster's string, and thrust neatly between the major bones of your arm is Madotsuki's massive kitchen knife, the tip just grazing the hollow of her throat. Her hands slip from the grip as her eyes fall to yours, wide with complete and utter shock. Your body is still numb; you can't even feel the blood dripping from your arm onto your face. You can only drool helplessly and pump every emotion you've ever felt into your eyes, trying to bridge that few feet of air and darkness with everything you can no longer say.

Madotsuki opens her mouth, sipping for air as she begins to pale with shock – real, medical shock, the kind you break out space blankets for. Her lips move slightly as she tries to form a word.

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>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8WfvpqqgvA

But the next sound is a shriek. Rising in the distance far behind, a mad, keening shriek of rage that races down the sandy path towards you, morphing into a howl of agony torn straight from the soul as it climbs right behind you. Madotsuki flings herself backwards in terror, her knee hitting the side of your head and knocking it sideways so you can see Poniko, kneeling above you. She's clawing at her face, tears flowing from her striking green eyes as her features contort in agony, her shriek rising and expanding and never stopping as it floods forth to fill everywhere, the whole everything, climbing and climbing. A sharp report; a gunshot crack as her entire torso jerks forward, a wrong, sharp angle in her spine as ribbons burst forth in awful sprays of blood and spinal fluid just like twining and clawing to either side, spreading wide and awful wings

>>34167080
This isn't what she's supposed to turn into. This isn't what she's supposed to turn into at all! Good job, faggot (still feel awkward calling you that, by the way). You continue to surprise and shock.

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>>34167080

Poniko's back arches, her spine flopping back with a sick grinding of bone as she tears at her hair, her lungs bellowing her dying shriek into the sky. Her body seems to deflate as more black ribbons burst from her mouth, spewing into the air and swirling into a tornado of darkness, made from her guts; flecks and drops of viscera flying everywhere. Something translucent and white slides from Poniko's mouth as the screech drops in pitch, heading for a lower thrumming that sends vibrations through the sand beneath you, threatening to shake the Dream apart. It shimmers and shines and as Poniko's body shrivels like a sucked-out plastic bottle. Her brilliant green eyes are the last to go, their emerald light fading into dark pools a moment before the orbs themselves are sucked into the shriveling face, her remnants vanishing into the blood-soaked and flesh-flecked remnants of her clothes.

Above the corpse, Poniko's siphoned soul is being lashed down by black ribbons, a few of which plaster upon it -

- a face.

The last thing you hear is Madotsui's shriek of mindless, helpless, pleading terror as the beast falls upon you both.

>>34167408

Seems like a good time for me to grab dinner, be back in a few minutes, cheerio~

>>34167408
Oh, there's the horrifying monstrosity we all know and love. Well, you still delivered it to us in an unexpected manner, so I'm not withdrawing my kudos.

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>>34167408

Back! Time to take this train to Despair Station. THE DARKEST POINT.

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>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKMDuv7282Y

You wake into darkness.

You gasp sharply as your whole body spasms in reaction to some forgotten danger, the vague vestiges of memory sliding away as you jerk upright into a sitting position. The surface beneath your hands is cool and slick like obsidian, and it seems to be vibrating powerfully.

You stare at your hand, pale and barely visible in the gloom. Stretching it out from your face, you almost lose sight of it – the darkness is deep. Over the thundering of your racing heart you can hear the wind as it roars and rumbles through unseen canyons high above. Your sneakers squeak on the obsidian as you struggle to stand; some unseen, titanic engines are laboring steadily deep beneath the ground, their efforts rumbling through the vast chambers that lurk in the dark, invisible and foreboding.

You're lost.

Your weapons are missing.

And you don't know what to do.

>Search
>Call out
>write-in

>>34168118
>>Call out
Finding Mado is priority.

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>don't you love it when you find the perfect picture for an update after you post the update

>LITTLEFOOT_FUCK.PNG

>>34168118
>Call out

>>34168118
Kinda feeling naked without those Irons.

But Mado. I don't know what do!

>Call out (I guess!)

>>34168118
>Call out
>write-in
We need to find Mado. Though I think it would be fitting for Stark's personality for him to be sarcastic in the process. All complaining about how the dreamworld keeps sending mixed messages even without the Dancer trying to corrupt it.

>>34168118

>Call out

So, this post is nearly identical to the very first post of this quest. I really hope our memories didn't get wiped.

Cupping your hands to your mouth, you draw in a deep breath, ready to cry out – then pause. You can just imagine the consequences of sending your voice crashing and echoing around this awful place; no telling what monsters and ghouls will emerge to eat you...

… but you don't have a choice.

“MADO!” you scream. Your voice doesn't echo so much as arc, rebounding off a distant surface two long, long seconds later, then another one, so distant and faint you can scarce distinguish it.

This place is *big.*

“MADO!” you scream. You wonder if she's out there, or right behind you, waiting to step in and mock your histrionics as she's won't to do. Or lurking behind you, ready to pull another prank, like that severed-head gimmick, the little witch. “OH WOW!” you cry out, trying to shout over the wind. “ANOTHER DARK VOID! NEVER WOULD'VE GUESSED IT! YOUR IMAGINATION SUCKS!”

Nothing answers you.

“OKAY, YOU'RE TOO LAZY TO FILL IN THE BLACK AND WHITE FEELS TOO MATRIX, BUT WEREN'T WE JUST DOING THIS SHIT?” you cry out, wandering into the dark. “LETS CHANGE IT UP A BIT, HUH!?”

Nothing answers you.

As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you begin to discern the faint outlines of buildings – skyscrapers, even, climbing high into unseen caverns. The 'street' beneath your feet seems to wend and wind at random, vanishing between the faint, dark outlines of massive skyscrapers on each side of you. Looking up, you catch faint glimpses of ephemeral whiteness passing by, so faint you scarce believe you saw them.

You're standing in a ghost town.

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You keep shouting, your voice growing hoarse as you cry out for Madotsuki. You remember her saying something about enemies that teleport you, trap you so you can't wake up – but you're the Iron Man, your tools always find their way back to you, and you've not met a barrier in this shared Dreaming you couldn't break. She's in here, somewhere, scared and alone, and you've got to find her, got to find her if it takes every last breath you've got remaining Up There to do. You begin running through the city, your footsteps clopping off distant storefronts and cold stone buildings as you go searching, calling, calling, calling her name...

… but nobody answers.

Behind you, you detect a flash of translucent white. You whirl, bringing your fists up in a useless-feeling defensive gesture. Far away, drifting over a barely-visible steam vent, is the faint suggestion of a ghost.

You walk backwards, carefully, keeping your eyes on the foe and shooting quick looks over your shoulder.

Yes, it's – it's definitely following you.

>Follow – it might be trying to help.
>Converse – say something useful this time, you fuck.
>Lead – You know exactly where to go in this city: (write-in destination optional.)

>>34168892
>Converse – say something useful this time, you fuck.

>>34168892
This thing again? Well, it helped us last time.

>Follow – it might be trying to help.

>>34168892

>Try talking. If that fails, follow.

We're trying to find Mado's dream-apartment, I figure.

>>34168892
>>Follow – it might be trying to help.
Well at least we are not in Sharnoth...

>>34168892
>Follow – it might be trying to help.

>>34168892
>Follow - it might be trying to help.

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>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY6x6QpUi7g

Deja-vu strikes unexpected, the queer sense of eerie disorientation as the puzzle pieces fit together. Waking up in the dark, alone, unarmed, followed by a strange ghost. Like the one when you first woke up in this dream - with the bursts of barely-coherent static. Knowing what you do now – that you're in trouble, Up There, you wonder if it wasn't trying to help before.

You approach the ghost slowly, and it approaches you, its one odd eye tracking you impassively. As you draw near the faint sibilance of static can be heard over the cities howling, hungry winds. When you're almost within arms reach, it speaks.

“-ode Ten-Sixty-Six in progress, code Ten-Sixty-Six in progress, box eighteen,” it says, a man's voice roughened by smoke and static. “Requesting additional dispatch.

The ghost turns and drifts away towards a nearby building – a four-story structure with huge rolling doors set in its face. Spirits are drifting by on either side of you; the longer your eyes adjust to the dark, the more of them you can see; gossamer shades floating through the air. The following – now leading – ghost doesn't waver, however, leading you straight to the door.

“Ten-four, proceed with traffic,” a calm female tone replies.

You shove the door wide, finding an abandoned office with empty clothes hooks and dusty debris scattered upon the floor. A ghost town, indeed. The Ghost leads through a door to the right, a dark, yawning space.

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>>34170181

“MCU, radio truck, any commo you've got!” the voice replies. “We can't maintain a digital link, the EMI's too strong to burn through. We've lost all the URVs. We need a better radio and we need it NOW!”

You step into the room. Its pitch black, but the ghost itself sheds enough illumination that you can barely discern the cab of a vehicle – a big one.

“We're sending station twelve's buggy,” the calm female voice replies. “ETA, six minutes. No more URVs to dispatch.”

You sling yourself into the cab, finding your way through familiar feel. A button yields to your finger, and below you hear the throaty roar of a gigantic diesel. With a loud clank and clatter of long-frozen metal, the sliding metal door opens to the darkness beyond, and you drive the engine into the street.

>>34170181
>code Ten-Sixty-Six in progress, box eighteen
I'd try to guess what that means, but given that response codes vary from region to region I have no idea. In at least one dispatch code 10-66 stands for "Cancel the message". I think is probably something worse than that, though.

>>34170463

For simplicity's sake, I decided to stick with FDNY codes, if that helps.

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The apparatus's heavy suspension crashes and jolts as you bounce over the invisible curb, turning out hastily and burning rubber as you accelerate down the main stretch. The ghost is before you, brilliant-white in the blinding glare of your headlights. You reach into the dark cab, instinctive muscle-memory guiding your fingers...
>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61qZ4DwVnuE

….and the sirens blare to life, the horn wailing mournful and long like a gigantic red ghost itself as it thunders along. The big diesel beats out a steady cadence as the truck wails through the streets, the bright red flashers illuminating the slick asphalt and towering skyscrapers with blood-red luminance.

The ghost leads you deeper into the city, one shade following another, the Wild Hunt moaning and wailing through the dark.

>>34170585
Let me look that up...Missing member in need of extrication. Okay, that's nothing new, then. I was worried it was some awful new twist being foreshadowed to us.

Time stretches out into a blank eternity, indecipherable, the sirens repeating song and the diesels steady rumble rolling and rolling and rolling through your mind, looping infinitely. You simply steer to keep the Ghost in your headlamps, paying no heed to curbs or streets, trusting innately in the spirit's intentions.

At last – at long last – the ghost slows, then stops. The airbrakes squeal with a banshee hiss as you halt the apparatus and leap from the cab. Looking up, you see the Ghost vanishing into the doorway...

… of a five-story redstone.

You enter. Up the dark stair you run, your footsteps flying to the top of the shaft and bouncing back down and all around, lingering in the heavy air longer than they ought till the entire shaft is a riotous cacophony, all of your making. When you stop at the top-story door the echoes continue stubbornly, barely fading with each passing second as you catch your breath.

You shove your way through.

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>>34170793

A dark hall stretches before you, the low, sick glow of the hated sodium emergency lamps smoldering uselessly on each side. At the far end of the hall you espy someone – or something – hunched over, leaning against the sheetrock. You trot towards it, then jog, then run as your darkness-adapted eyes slowly discern the pink hue of Madotsuki's sweater.

You've found her.

You slow to a stop a safe distance away, panting hard from your long run up the stairs. Mado doesn't stir; still cowering in the corner. You don't know what happened to her in the dark, when Poniko angel dark angel unfurling changed, but it couldn't have been good.

In fact... it might have been bad.

Very bad.

You remember the puddle. The doppleganger. Her ghost, in Hell, and the long, horrible doubt that grew like a cancer in your mind, more plausible by the moment. You want to reach out, grab her, spin her around and look her in the eye and slay this fear, this pondering, and just, one way or the other you'd KNOW-

… but.

Traps.

>Its her. She's come too far to fail now.
>It's not her. You already know it, in your gut.

>>34170976
>Its her. She's come too far to fail now.
I want to believe.

>>34170976
>Its her. She's come too far to fail now.

>>34170976
This seems like a very important and hard-to-make decision
>Its her. She's come too far to fail now.

>>34170976
>Its her. She's come too far to fail now.
Ask her to insult us. An imitation Madotsuki couldn't manage nearly the level of vitriol the real thing can bring to bear.

>>34170976
Inb4 Mado with Uboa's face.

>>34171199
>mfw
>mfw your face is mado's face

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>DO NOT OPEN IMAGE

You pause, pondering. You've been scared shirtless since this nightmare began, but as you moved from horror to horror, where worlds and the very laws of physics warped and twisted as they wished, one thing's remained consistent – Madotsuki. Her glower, her sudden outbursts of humor and vulnerability, the cool, disinterested way she watched you blubber and roll around on the floor like a straight-jacketed simpleton – that never changed, ever. This is her territory, her turf, and the last time you were surprised by something like this it was your own demons, your own desperate needs that made you see something that wasn't there.

You reach out for her, your heart leaping, hammering, hoping. No matter where you are – no matter what monsters pursue – if you're with Mado, you're on the right track. You take her shoulder, gently, turn her around, and

>OPEN IMAGE

-stare straight into a smooth expanse of featureless, flat skin.

Madotsuki's face is completely gone.

>>34171484
Mado, you better be using the god damn Nopperabo effect.

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>>34171558
>Mado, you better be using the god damn Nopperabo effect.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOPE

That *is* the nopperabo effect, though!

It's 12:00 AM, so I'm going to call it a night here - but we finally had a thread where I managed to get through all the planned content (running for two extra hours helped.) Tomorrow I work an 11AM to 5PM shift, so we will resume TOMORROW at the regular time of 6PM!

We're almost at the end, now. If this thread seemed dark, good. Tune in tomorrow afternoon, because hope rides a ladder engine.

>>34171671
Neat. See you then, faggot.

>>34171671
So she's faceless for some other reason. That's just great. Oh, faggot, you will never cease to fuck with my head, will you? Thanks for running, man. See you tomorrow.