Scion – Rada Campaign Guest Appearance – Part 1

This account was originally found on Livejournal, I am not the original author—I am just a fan of the journal and have found reading it on livejournal clunky to navigate and rife with errors/instability (such as having to refresh multiple times due to the page in questions becoming unavailable often requiring multiple refreshes. The original post can be found here, published by DJ-Yomi, and was published on July 3rd 2008

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So I’ve returned to Japan again. I was only here a little more than six months ago when we took care of the Mountain of Resurrection, and then again for a couple of weeks toward the end of my tour, but now I’m back. I guess I’ll be spending a lot of time here as I drift closer to godhood. Anyway, what was supposed to be a quiet trip to check up on Hinako and Sayuri and maybe meet Keiko’s daughter, Teruko, has turned into a quite an adventure, or so it seems. I’ve met another powerful band of demigods, some of whom have apparently worked with Ray, Pierre, and Elisa before. I think Pierre mentioned something about them, but I’ll have to get on Ray and Elisa’s cases  for not mentioning these guys to me before! ;-P

Anyway, first things first. Hinako and Sayuri are safe and sound, though they’ve been having a lot of issues with each other. In part, I came to try and help them sort things out. I don’t want to go into much detail, but basically Sayuri is completely devoted to Hinako, but Hinako doesn’t know what she wants. She is very attracted to Sayuri and as far as I can tell is kind of addicted to her. But a relationship with another woman doesn’t fit into her ideal image of romance and family, which is very traditional. Plus, she feels that Sayuri taints her, which is problematic.

Hinako’s issues are quite legitimate, so I couldn’t really tell her what to do. I do know, however, that Amaterasu despises Sayuri because of the willingness with which she maintains her karmic taint, a taint that she could cleanse if she wanted to. It’s different from my taint, which for some reason doesn’t bother Amaterasu as much. And part of the problem with their relationship is that they kinda just dove in head first. They were just friends, and then they were passionate, if troubled lovers. They didn’t really get a chance to date, or discover romance or feelings for each other beyond physical attraction (well, Hinako didn’t anyway…Sayuri’s been in love with her for a long time). And that’s bad. Furthermore, I strongly suspect that part of Hinako’s weakness for Sayuri comes from Sayuri’s spiritually tainted nature. Hinako probably won’t be able to fully recover from her own taint until she gives up on Sayuri or Sayuri’s taint is cleansed.

I more or less discussed all of this with each of them individually. I tried to convince Sayuri to back off and take the time to be more romantic with Hinako. Maybe date her a bit instead of just sleeping together all the time. You know, to give their relationship more of a foundation. I also strongly suggested to Sayuri that she work on cleansing her taint by overcoming her addiction to lamp oil. If she can stop stealing it from temples, then she’ll prove that she’s not willfully maintaining the spiritual taint that made her into a rokurokubi in the first place. That’s the only way Amaterasu will ever approve of her, and without that, I’m afraid Sayuri’s relationship with Hinako might be impossible. She didn’t like the idea at all, but I think I might have gotten through to her. And Quinn’s helping. She and Sayuri are good friends now, so even if Sayuri doesn’t listen to me, maybe she’ll listen to Quinn.

So, having given them some things to think about and work on, I hope that Hinako and Sayuri will either work their relationship out or realize that they aren’t right for each other. One or the other has to happen because they can’t go on in the state of passionate angst that seems to define them right now. Hmmm. Passionate Angst. That would make a good song title. I’ll have to remember that one. ^_^

Anyway, while I was spending time with Hinako and Sayuri, I learned that something’s going on in Kyushu. It appears that there’s some fallout from the work we did in Shikoku. Daitokuji, the company that’s allied with the titans and makes those weird biomechanical demon-robots, had moved its operations to Oita-ken in Kyushu. It has managed to make the local youkai quite angry, and since they couldn’t take it out on the company itself, they’ve been harassing the local inhabitants.

I thought about calling in the others (you know, Ray and the gang) immediately, but decided I’d head to Kyushu and check things out first. Besides, I knew if I got in any real danger, Ray would show up to help me. Quinn, Dahlia, and Kimiyo wanted to hang out with Hinako and Sayuri, so they stayed behind (with strict instructions to keep each other off the lamp oil) while Keiko, Sera, Tabby, and my shikome traveled to a town called Beppu in Kyushu.

I hadn’t been there long when I received a phone call. I didn’t know the man on the other end of the line, but he said that a nopperabo woman (whom I quickly surmised was Keiko’s daughter, Teruko) had given him my number. After a short conversation, I learned that he was part of a group of scions who were trying to deal with Daitokuji’s operations and help the local youkai. So of course I offered my assistance. This was exactly what I had come to investigate, after all. So Keiko, Tabby, and I drove out to meet them while Sera and shikome settled into a hotel.

Let me describe this other band of scions. First, there’s Storm, a son of Zeus. He’s a big, handsome, strong-looking African-American man who struck me as being both forceful and easy-going. He’s very friendly, helpful, and ridiculously strong. I liked him instantly, but maybe that’s because he seemed particularly susceptible to my feminine wiles. *wink* ^_^ He seemed to get along well with the youkai too, which is a vote in his favor as far as I’m concerned.

Jacob is a son of Frigg. He’s a handsome man who looks like what he is, a middle-American dad. Not normally my kind of person, but he was a really likeable guy! At first, he seemed very much on guard around me, as though he felt threatened by me somehow. But when Storm overheard me telling Helena (see below) that I was married, he seemed to relax, and after that we got along famously. I’m not sure, but my guess is that, being a family man, Jacob was afraid I might be a home-wrecker and that he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation if I started coming on to him. No threat of that, really. He is cute, though. ^_^

Cesar, a son a Huitzilopochtli, is a crazy, in-your-face gunman. He reminds me a little of Elisa, but whereas there’s a very serious, almost psychotic edge to her fanaticism, Cesar just seems like he’s having fun when he’s killing things. He’s pretty hot, and I found myself flirting with him fairly heavily, which kinda got me in trouble with Helena…but I’ll talk more about that in a moment. One thing about Cesar, though…he’s got some of the worst fashion sense of anyone I’ve ever met. Not to my taste at all. >_< And you know how important fashion is to me.

Next there’s Helena. Helena is a daughter of Hel, and she strikes me as just a frigid as her mother. She’s prim, proper, and nearly emotionless, or so she’d have others believe. In fact, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that she’s hopelessly in love with Cesar. Opposites attract, I suppose. ^_^ Anyway, when I learned this, I (mostly) stopped flirting with him because I didn’t want to make her mad. In fact, I made an effort to befriend her. I tend to like the other children of death gods, after all, so despite our difference, I’m sure that Helena and I also have a lot in common. She’s a pretty snappy dresser, even if her clothes are a bit bland. Hmmm. Maybe we’ll have to work a little on that. Anyway, she seemed to warm to me as we talked. ^_^

Carina is a daughter of Bast. She’s a graceful, attractive woman. She was a bit quieter than many of her companions, but I wouldn’t call her shy by any means. She seems to be their scout (and a very capable one!), so it makes sense that she’d be a little more subtle than the rest. I learned that it’s because of Carina that this band of scions is involved in Kyushu. She came to help a fellow daughter of Bast, a Japanese girl named Maneki who has been trying to help the youkai deal with Daitokuji but isn’t up to the task.

Finally, there’s Sam, a son of Anubis. He said very little, so I don’t feel like I got to know him well. He looks like your stereotypical man-in-black or a Matrix agent, and he’s just as emotionless and tight-lipped as you’d expect from someone like that. Even so, he must have some emotions, because Carina was awfully defensive of him when I showed up. Unless I miss my guess, those two are involved.

In addition to the six scions, there are also two tanuki working with their group, a pair of guides who were helping them deal with the situation. Their names were Zenkei and Bankei, and they were a very comical duo. Interacting with them is like watching a Looney Tunes cartoon or a two-man comedy routine in which neither comedian is the straight-man.

Needless to say, I made a stunning arrival, displaying the full extent of my divine beauty. I had to make an outstanding first impression, after all. ^_^. I toned it down quickly enough, though, but it still took Storm awhile to pick his jaw up off the floor. I honestly think he was devastated to learn that I’m married. Poor guy.

Anyway, after introductions and a bit of conversation in which we got to know each other, Storm and the others filled me in on the situation. In short, having been ousted from Shikoku and the Mountain of Resurrection, the titans and Daitokuji have moved their operations to Kyushu, where they are again trying to taint the land to make way for corrupted things to enter the World. The company has three strongholds in the area, each of which is harming the spiritual purity of the land and really pissing off the local youkai. The band was planning on finding ways to deal with each stronghold in turn, and when I met them, they were on their way to wipe out the least defended of the three, a sort of construction yard with a huge pit where zombies were being kept. Storm’s band hoped that by attacking that facility, Daitokuji would be forced to spread their remaining forces more thinly at the other two, making them easier to infiltrate and destroy.

I have to hand it to these guys, they did a good job in planning their attack. I don’t mean the details of the assault itself, but rather how they planned to deal with the zombies. They went with Elisa’s favorite plan: FIRE. Burn the zombies out. But, sensitive to the need to avoid any further pollution of the land, they’d decided against using gasoline to douse the undead, and had gotten their hands on a supply of drinking alcohol instead. A nice solution, I thought. Alcohol’s not going to pollute the land. In fact, there are even spiritually sanctified types of sake used in some Shinto religious ceremonies!

Anyway, I offered my help. I warned that I might not be very good at fighting, but that I could still offer a lot of support in combat and might know more about what’s going on at the facilities, being more familiar with Japan’s mystical qualities and having dealt directly with Daitokuji before. The others were happy to have my help, so Keiko, Tabby, and I joined them on the hike up to “the pit.”

As we neared the facility, Carina scouted ahead and reported that there were two biomechanical robots and about eight or ten mortals (guards and workers). The site itself was pretty sparse, really just a foreman’s shack, the zombie pit, and a number of trucks carrying canisters of some undoubtedly vile chemical. I told the others that I could deal with all the mortals if they could focus on the robots, and that was the plan.

We jumped the fence (well, Storm tossed a few of us over) to bypass the exterior guards and then attacked full force. I boldly strode forth and called to the mortals, drawing their attention to me and enthralling them with my beauty, which, as usual, neutralized them for the rest of the fight. Everyone else charged the robots.

I have to say, this group certainly goes all out when they enter a fight! They were just as fearsome as Adam, Ray, Anna, Elisa, and the others I’m used to working with. Well, maybe not as fearsome as Ray. ^_^ They made short work of the robots, but even before they’d finished them off, an oni emerged from the zombie pit. Cesar was on it immediately He did a running slide under it, between its legs, and pretty much emasculated it. I think Cesar has a special grudge against oni for some reason. It didn’t take long for the others to finish the oni off, and it was Helena who struck the killing blow with her relic axe. From the congratulations she received from the others, I got the impression that this was the first time she’d actually killed anything! Yay for her! ^_^

By this point, I’d maneuvered to get a better look at the pit. It was definitely full of zombies. Well, hungry dead actually, which are certainly less huggable than zombies. >_< But they were awfully desiccated, and what really disturbed me about the pit were the mystical symbols etched into its sides. As soon as I saw those, I knew what Daitokuji was doing. They were using the pit to create gashadokuro, the gigantic skeletons we fought before. Not good.

At this point, it was apparent that the mortals weren’t just hapless employees of Daitokuji. You can’t attend to a pit of titanspawned hungry dead without accepting some responsibility for your actions, and these guys were evil if not titan-tainted. So after a short discussion with Keiko and Tabby, I got on the phone and asked Sera to bring the shikome. After all, they’ve been so good lately, and they deserve a treat…