The Scouring of Paradise

On the first day, she found herself in a place bereft of life, ruined by war, the very air tasting of smoke. All around her floated bits of rock and debris. The only beings she encountered were feral, furry creatures who ran on all fours and only communicated in barks and shrieks. Their roaming horde descended upon her the moment she set foot on the planet, leaping out from the shadows starved and bloody-eyed while gnashing their chipped, yellow teeth. Rianne engulfed them in a sliver of bluish energy forming on her fingertip, heat flowing forth cleanly, and she was alone again unexpectedly.

The second day yielded a planet choked in a thick haze of yellow-brown clouds, rising from the surface like blood billowing up from underwater, coating the planet in a thick, humid fog thousands of feet into the air. As was expected, not many remained here. The buildings were peeling back, the metal of the Planet Trade Organization’s bulbous towers and barracks corroding red as dry blood into the air where a great wind was blowing No one was around. They were all inside one of those buildings over there. Rianne jumped and was there, tearing a hole through the wall without straining herself. She smiled, wondering how they would respond.

The aliens wore mass-produced armor with long shoulder pauldrons and thick painted chest pieces. The first one or two she swung playful punches at, but when they failed to block her blows, turning into to dark pools of wet meat, spraying back upon their comrades behind them, the rest fled from her presence, many out into the open air, where they fell gagging and burning to dust, their eyes bleeding gold as the sandstorm rushed through town. Rianne was surprised they were so weak, and a little disappointed. Like smoke in the wind, their bodies, turned to ash in mere seconds out in the elements, were blown down the street, along with much of the rest of the building. She looked around, not sensing anyone else on this planet. Oh well, she thought. Guess they weren’t going to be much fun.

On the third day, Rianne the Twili found Nuoh the slaveworld, run by pirates and some of the most sour-skinned criminals in the entire galaxy. Rianne, who was born in the Other World, had no knowledge of such things. She was fortunate that her many years as an Oni guard within hell had honed her strength, stamina, endurance, ferocity, technical fighting precision, and ability to adjust to an opponent’s style quickly. Here now were many famous and dangerous assassins and thieves, slavers and scammers. It was here she first witnessed one mortal being kill another. Painting his comrade’s skull blood all over a sandy brick wall, a dapper alien with a lizardly face whistled cruelly, snapping his teeth, his tongue shooting forward to jab at his fallen comrade’s eye (who was of the same species). The fallen man was already dead by the time Rianne had noticed.

“What the… what’s happened to him?” Having come from a place where death did not occur, Rianne was at a loss.

“Back off,” his friend threatened. “None of your business! Go away!”

It was just like what happened to those mongrel beasts, like what happened to those imperial soldiers, so desperately running from her into acid rain, their screams ringing in her ears, and then they were nothing but ash, intangible specks in the wind–gone. She no longer felt their presence.

“Why can’t he get back up?” she asked suddenly curious. “What’d you do to him? Teach me a move as strong as that!” she shouted arrogantly, beating her chest and sneering at the alien.

So taken aback by her rudeness was this professional slaver that he had no recourse but to swing a wild fist at her, first feinting to the left, then hooking right with his dominant fist.

Catching the man’s fist with one hand effortless, the demon girl, whose hair glowed a very dark blue in the low artificial lights of Nuoh (as the entire planet was covered in a constructed complex, there is no “outside” except on the roofs), shook her head in disappointment. ''Is this all this place has to offer? Why are there any stronger ones? This isn’t any fun.'' Pirates don’t like heights, Rianne soon learned, but not before she tore of the man’s arm with a subtle twitch of her arm. He fell screaming, a spire of hot orange-red blood spurting everywhere.

Several of them said words she knew had to be swear words. One or two she even recognized from words the prisoners in hell sometimes used. Blue flames shot up around her, illuminating Rianne’s slender, tall demon frame, her blue hair even more visible in the brightness radiating out from her. The pirates had no time to react; indeed, as they rushed in at her, Rianne’s aura flowed outwards, and everywhere it connected with them, a flash-detonation sounded, blowing each pirate away into heaps of limbs and bloody piles of torn meat and organs, crushed bones sticking out at awkward angles.

More came at her, and she was using her Kanabo now, tearing through them with slices and cuts and heavy swings. They were all of them weak–disappointingly weak. She didn’t understand how they thought they could ever hope to challenge her. She hadn’t powered up yet.

The pirates at last were vanquished, though not purged. Those who remained ceased their attacks, and Rianne understood that they had surrendered. “Now,” she said, approaching the fattest, and most well-fed one she could spot amongst the wreckage and gore. “You! I’m hungry. What do you have to eat around here?” she asked lightly.

“I…” He was taken aback by the question. “Wh-what was that?”

Impatiently, Rianne the Twili hurled a red ball of ki at the man, hitting him hard in the forehead. The energy stuck to his body for a moment before growing slightly in size, and he began to scream, the reek of burning hair rising around all of them.

When the pirate dropped, the others all fell to their knees, begging to make her the best meal they’d ever cooked, in exchange for their lives, of course.

To this, the Oni replied, “I will taste whatever you make before judging your fate.”

She feared no poisons from this realm.

They all got very terrified at that point. It was very scary for all of those horrible murderers and thieves. They ran and ran and ran, and she tore down the slave-holds, letting those inside go free, though it had been tempting to test her power against them. ''They’re all too weak and malnourished to put up much of a fight. Not like back home.'' She thought of all the heinous beings she had had to fight. The face of Bojack the Destroyer was in her vision when she closed her eyes. He had been her last foe, the man who had pushed through those gates and whom she had followed with great haste out into this different dimension. While the other guards and noble Pikkon had surely rounded up all of the escaped dead evildoers, they had not come for she who had been so swept up in the chaos of that moment, that before she had had time to think and calculate, she had already thrown herself passionately beyond those broken gates, her thirst for something new, something interesting drove her. That was all she needed at this point. Years of patrolling hell could do that to someone.

She had kicked old Bojack across the eyes, splitting open a gash over one of them. That had been the last she’d seen of him, but he’d called her a furless Nyarin, burnt only halfway. Then he’d fallen, blood gushing upwards in a beautiful arc, back towards the gate, where he had surely been the first escapee recaptured. But Rianne had not stayed to watch.

That night she feasted with five hundred thirty-four pirates of varying genders and sexual persuasions. She had a sense through smell what kind of man or woman she was looking at, and usually she was not surprised. But sometimes, there was disappointment there. Feasting with them roused a fire in her belly that spread to a flush in her cheeks, but in that moment, she became their new captain–all of them–even those who had once been captains themselves.

Rianne led her crew for exactly one day. On the second day, they ran into a bigger crew, and there was a space fight. To the last pirate they all fought, some of them half-decently, and it was moderately entertaining for her too. But by the end of it, all of them were dead and the planet was cracked in half, charred to rubble.

She moved on. Space was vaster than Rianne could have imagined, lonelier, colder, less frequently-populated with life than hell. For the next nineteen days, she came across only planets of ruin and war and pestilence and plague–planets forsaken and barren, lifeless and festering and spoiled like apples left out too long in the sun.

One by one they went up in light and fire, and not for one moment did she detect the presence of an astute angelic attendant poking into check on this power. Some explosions were more dramatic, some were more colorful, dependant upon the composition of the planet’s core and the gasses comprising its atmosphere. There were few places to eat, fewer things edible, and of those which were, she found their taste to be rather unremarkable. Having stopped at an asteroid-clung restaurant known as a Sonikku, Rianne broke three pirates’ arms waiting for her meal, challenging each one to an arm wrestling match with such a bored whine that they had all felt obligated to step forth and accept.

Once they were three against one, they decided to try their luck, but in the end, she ate their meals too, and thought little of anything she consumed in this realm. Sour vapor clinging to her tongue in aftertaste was the overall effect, and Rianne was nonplussed. I could eat everything here if I wanted to, she knew, ''but why bother? This place isn’t that great anyways.''

Due to its own mediocrity, the fast food restaurant met its end in a fiery, flaming wall of ki expanding from Rianne’s body so suddenly that nobody had time to react, least of all the cashier, who had given Rianne a little lip for taking too long to order, so she didn’t mind seeing that bitch burn too.

At Yul-Muwaho, on a desolate reaving outpost clung to the side of the tallest peak of the Ice King’s crown, she met a bounty hunter who informed her of the price that had been placed up on her head. A reward of three trillion woolongs was being offered for her hide. “Only a corpse’ll do,” he growled like a decaying bog imp.

On Polikano, she dined on Bouz-Bouzah heads, deep fried and covered in Sticky Bulauo sauce. Five assassins came for her there. She never had to drop her bowl to dispatch any of them. This one had a spicier taste than expected, and that intrigued her. But it’s nothing like home.

One tore open the pink of his cheek to the back of his neck as her foot got caught in his mouth, Rianne doing a spinning kick to aggressively close the distance between them, and his wound, ghastly as it was, stood before her for only a split-second, enough time to imprint on the inside of her eyelids.

This recurred for several days, resulting in the deaths of tens and hundreds of veteran bounty hunters and mercenaries. Discouraged from hearing again and again that so many of their most elite peers were falling in battle against her, the weaker bounty hunters refused to hunt the blue-haired demon girl any longer, knowing that to do so would be equivalent to suicide. That is not to say that all became cowards. Some few, even knowing what would happen, went after her, and suffice to say, she lit them up, ain’t nobody ever seen em again. She was good about sending people to her home.

She had torn a swath through a wide gulf in the universe. It was only Age 775, though Rianne knew that not. The Planet Trade Organization was at war with the Corvos League and a host of other rebellious, corsair-flavored independent fleets. The wars had been costly to this point, and most of the armies of both sides had been depleted in battle. Their defenses laid bare, the space wolves descended upon the choicest planets in the Planet Trade Organization’s territory, plundering countless worlds, pillaging and burning and raping and killing just to be killing, and trillions were lost.

Rianne found the universe a bleeding, wounded place when she arrived, and that sentiment had only become more acute the more days she stayed. Day after day, she wondered, ''where are they? Aren’t they coming to get me?'' She had resigned herself to being caught eventually, but the days kept going by, and she was becoming more and more notorious. They had to know what she was up to. ''King Yemma himself might come. Or he’ll just send Pikkon, ugh.''

It had been forty-three days since she’d left. The universe was quiet that day. She had landed on an undeveloped world she did not know, and the natives were feeding her the carcass of a boiled animal, spiced with fermented sour grasses and a bit of sugar. She thought it tasted alright, though it wasn’t all that filling.

Some time later, she was looking for an adventure when she heard from a galactic-bound space candy hauling trucker, that there was a tricky situation going down in Bzhechilon’s Deep, the name of a submerged cave-network kingdom built by a now-extinct species on Planet Cooler 132. The hidden city had become the haunt of pirates as of late, and with the bounty hunter population being reduced so low, such infestations were likely to persist for some time before being challenged by either the empire in possession of the planet or the Galactic Patrol.

There was a man who called himself King–well, sometimes he wished to be called God-Emperor, but who can blame him?–who was really just a pirate. He and his crew were nasty and foul, and he had a rather high power level, whatever that meant. I believe the king’s nickname was, in these days, ‘The Walk-In Litterbox’, for reasons that are most apocryphal, but to put it bluntly, something had gone hopelessly wrong in his brain and he wasn’t able to make any heirs with his wife, with whom making heirs should be the easiest thing in the world to do, of course. The Walk-In Litterbox’s real name remains lost to the epochs of time

Rianne went there to say hello and kill some motherfucking pirate scum. It would be a very fun adventure or something. It is said that in days of yore, Leqir fugitives would flee here to hide out in that famous black-market underground city of Bzhechilon’s Deep. The demon girl wondered how many Leqir were down beneath that planet, and the prospect of finding out and testing herself against them made excitement bubble up in her chest; she felt eager, her body loose, her shoulders thrust forward.

Surging to the surface, blowing a crater through the rock, cracking the crust, sending tremors across the land so violent the forests around the entrance (which was smaller than a space pod’s window) to the underground lair shattered along with it, and collapsing away into the vast tunnels below. As the ground beneath her sagged and fell away, Rianne remained hovering, waiting.

It was precisely at this moment that The Walk-In Litterbox emerged from behind an uprooted tree that looked rather unlike a tree, but looked like a collection of stalks and stems and mushroom faces growing as leaves… but all that was upended in the mud now, and everything dirt-caked and exposed, dying as it all collapsed.

“Hiiiiiiiiii,” the king said pathetically, looking at Rianne. “Aw, you’re pretty. What’s your name?”

Rianne shrugged. “I’m not going to play games with you. I’m here to kill you.”

“N-no… you can’t!” the king sputtered. He was a classy alien, able to fly on his own, but he was awkward in his movements, and he flopped around a bit too unmanly for Rianne’s tastes–she liked a guy who would grab her like a man does and let her know that he was there to service her. This guy looked real desperate: his face was covered in sweat, his eyes were bulging out his skull, his body was quivering with anxiety so deep-rooted, he couldn’t even remotely conceal it.

She could tell how much he wanted her, and it was not appealing. He was not a man really. His actions and movements were all so effeminate and off-putting. “Not a chance, your majesty.”

“Come on, can’t I just get a look at those feet?!” the king cried, spittle trailing from his lips into the air in wide sailing arcs. “Just a peek, pleeeeeeease?! I won’t bother you anymore if you…” he rambled on, his squeaky, peevish voice melting into her consciousness like white noise.

He behaved like a child, and the fact that he wanted to see her feet was an alluring prospect in itself, perhaps, but not from this one–and she’d already given him fair warning.

With a sudden lunge forward through the air, the sound barrier shattering loudly the calm, she drew a savage blow across the king’s face. Thus, the king no longer had a face, and the planet, though damaged, was of the rabble-tyranny of pirates.

Where are they? she thought, her head raised to the heavens. Aren’t they coming to get me?

Guilt at leaving them, guilt at being left behind, guilt at not subduing those denizens… it all came flooding over her. The dust was settling back on the planet’s surface, and she was inhaling the grass and dirt and wood and the raw reek of the king’s internal organs, having spilled out before her feet like out of a treasure chest, finding no solace in a foreign, periwinkle sky.

Once upon a time on the very next day on Planet Tcherakoskt, Rianne met a bounty hunter who looked a little like a bunny she had once known in hell. That guy was so boss. The bunny with the halo over his head had possessed a magnificent white coat of fur–this bunny was hairless, with claws for paws and a mouth full of dagger teeth, his tail a meager thing barely worth mentioning.

He wore no clothes, but she could sense he had immense strength, and that got her excited enough to want to arm wrestle him. Rianne wanted to eat a big ol’ pot of meat stew right then and there.

Having already ordered from a flying Tahmic serving bot, the bunny with long ears leaned back, eyeing her coolly. “You’re not a bounty hunter, are you?”

“Absolutely.”

She sat up, now more alert, a flush spreading through her body. He’ll be my greatest test yet. “Alright, you’re on.”

“Nah, I’m not hunting you,” the alien murmured, taking another sip of a glowing blue drink and leaning back in his gravity chair. “I’m just here to relax, alright?”

“What’s there to do for fun around here?” Rianne asked hopefully, almost a little too girlishly.

The bar was nigh empty; a few drunk patrons were talking in a corner, and another alien with three stalks for eyes was stumbling around near the door, prompting a bouncer bot to approach it menacingly. Rianne loved what came next, but the bunny spoke again, drawing her attention to him. “Get drunk, like this. Same as always. Find girls, watch the games, get lit up.”

He whistled a sigh that was almost wistful enough to bring the blue-haired demon girl to tears. “Won’t you arm wrestle me?” she asked him suddenly. “Show me what you got, man.”

An unwilling look flashed across his face, but nevertheless, he drunkenly jumped off his chair, nearly losing his footing, and scooted over to Rianne’s tail. “Why are you here, girl?”

“Rianne, and I’m no girl. I’m an Oni guard of hell!”

The hairless alien cocked his head coolly. “Whatever that means.”

Unnerved, she admitted, “I’m here tracking the legendary Uko Pejuva Beast.”

“That’s a fairy tale. No such thing.”

“Is it now?” she asked coyly. “What would you happen to know about it?”

He brought his hand up onto the table, and she did likewise. As soon as they clasped their hands together, he said, “I won’t go easy on you.”

“I won’t go–”

Her hand hit the table, and the bunny’s eyes were gleaming. He leaned back in his chair, taking a hefty gulp of his glowing drink. Smirking, he said, “Don’t get carried away,” and vanished.

She would have followed him, but the food wasn’t half good, and she had to excuse herself.

It was much later, perhaps ten minutes later, when Rianne found the lair of the mythical Uko Pejuva, the most legendary beast in all the universe according to the King of the Galactic Patrol, that slimy old fucker (she didn’t find the prospect of that many tentacles appealing). Inside, a sturdy-looking man had set up shop and was selling the beast’s jeweled eyebrows for ten thousand space woolongs a pop. He had a long snout and black-and-white fur, a crude color combination for a space-badger. He had yet to cut up the rest of the sparkling wonderful creature, but he appeared very content even so.

“I got here first, aye,” he grinned. “You’re too slow. Now pay up, pay up!”

The corpse lay like a ruin at the foot of his stand, drenching the sand beneath their feet magenta from all the blood. She looked the alien shopkeep over, hardly believing he had slain the animal. ''He’s not what I would have expected. But then again, none of this is.'' The dirty look in his eyes was supplanted in hideousness only by the faint blackish mustache growing scantily beneath his nose. The concept of death had once eluded Rianne. Now she looked upon this rodent-faced merchant and felt herself growing rather grim with fury. She could only afford one of the eyebrows at that price.