Vamprinny Quest [Disgaea/Hellsing]

This universe of ours is divided into three broad strokes when you get down to it. There are human worlds, most of which are called Earth in a curious coincidence, rife with humans of all types. Good and bad and people just trying to get on with the task of living; the occasional great heroes and villains bobbing like gems in a sea of mediocrity. Every once in a while a Defender of Earth will strike out to save the world from demons by way of killing lots of them. Usually these heroes are buried in shallow graves if the demons can be bothered to do that much, but occasionally the human race does reach back and by luck or intention produce a paragon.

There are the many Celestial planes, home to the great and the glorious, the faithful and hypocritical celestials. Lands of eternal spring and beauty, where the souls of good humans working under the Seraph’s angels to promote peace and love. And the occasional bloody battle, assassination or war. Cleansing Sodom with fire and salt was not the cleanest of their operations, just as an example.

And then there are the various Netherworlds, crafted to the specifications of their Overlords. Worlds of demons that feed on humanity’s negative emotions with no knowledge of love or goodness. Or so it is said. Within these Netherworlds, the hierarchies of hells are strictly enforced by those with the power to do so. The Overlord oppresses the Demon Lords as it pleases. The Demon Lords in turn bully their vassals, which in turn screw with those demons which have no patron or protector.

And at the very bottom of the ladder stand the Prinnies. Containing the souls of human criminals, Prinnies slave for their demon masters in order to make enough money to successfully reincarnate into the human world again. They work 20 hour days for pitiful wages, lacking even the most basic of health care or benefits packages. Which is unfortunate for them, because Prinnies are regularly mistreated by their employers more than any other demon, given scutwork no other demon would accept, beaten if they fail and sometimes when they succeed. Also, they occasionally explode.

It’s a hard (after?)life, being a Prinny. Occasionally they attempt to revolt or strike, only to be beaten down once again and forced to work twice as hard to make up for their brief rebellion.

Only the souls of evil humans become Prinnies. Or so it is said; mostly the process of becoming a Prinny causes a loss of memory of their human lives, and nobody else cares enough to find out for them. So they are basically tossed into hell with little to no idea of what they were like when they were alive, told they were the lowest of the low, and then handed a mop and told to work forever.

Some of your memories seem to have gone missing during the transition, but what you do remember of your life leads you to believe you were somewhat worse than merely ‘criminal’.

[img width=463 height=600]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo289/dyslexicfaser/Alucaprinny_zps23129532.jpg[/img]

But whatever! You’re here, and they’re probably going to assign you to some demon noble brat that’s going to attempt to beat you into compliance.

Choose the place Fate would wish for you:
[X] A Vassal’s vassal, trying to wake a sleeping Prince.
[X] Summoned by a Demon Lord Beauty Queen.
[X] Subordinate of a student searching for a Hero’s power.
[X] Recalcitrant student of a foolish Prinny Instructor.
[X] Newly come to a world that has never seen a Prinny.

And your general opinion of such things:
[X] Taking orders seems oddly familiar. Let’s wait and see how this goes.
[X] After ten thousand years I’m free! Time to conquer... wherever the hell this is!

 

...

My jaw hath hit the floor.

 

[X] A Vassal’s vassal, trying to wake a sleeping Prince.

YES!

We shall meet Prinnies Zabuza, Lucy, and Evilwizardington- And together, FIGHT CRIME!

 

[X] A Vassal’s vassal, trying to wake a sleeping Prince.

I always did like Etna most.

[X] After ten thousand years I’m free! Time to conquer... wherever the hell this is!

We'll fit right in with this attitude. No one will even notice.

 

[X] Newly come to a world that has never seen a Prinny.
[X] After ten thousand years I’m free! Time to conquer... wherever the hell this is!

 

[X] Summoned by a Demon Lord Beauty Queen.

And your general opinion of such things:
[X] Taking orders seems oddly familiar. Let’s wait and see how this goes.

 

[X] A Vassal’s vassal, trying to wake a sleeping Prince

[X] After ten thousand years I’m free! Time to conquer... wherever the hell this is!

 

[X] A Vassal’s vassal, trying to wake a sleeping Prince.

[X] Taking orders seems oddly familiar. Let’s wait and see how this goes.

 

[X] A Vassal’s vassal, trying to wake a sleeping Prince.

[X] Taking orders seems oddly familiar. Let’s wait and see how this goes.

 

Looking like Disgaea 1's going to take it over Soul Nomad, but I'll give it at least 24 hours.

 

[X] A Vassal’s vassal, trying to wake a sleeping Prince

[X] After ten thousand years I’m free! Time to conquer... wherever the hell this is!

 

I know it's not at all supported, but I still fervently hope for:

[X] Subordinate of a student searching for a Hero’s power.

Simply because the setting makes is easy as balls to get the OTHER Atlus settings in.

Want Makai Kingdoms? Zetta ran away from Pram, hearing about this school for demons, and reasoning it's easier to trick stupid kid demons into signing mana away to him than regular overlords, and Pram, of course, predicted this and chased him.

Want Disgaea 1? You think Laharl would sit idly by and let some OTHER overlord get called the Strongest? Hell no. So he drags Etna and Flonne along, because that's what he does.


Well, I'll still vote for Soul Nomad over Disgaea 1, not for anything against Etna-she's an AMAZING character-but simply because I am more intrigued by Alucard/Gig interactions than I am about watching Etna self-destruct over a legitimately machiavellian prinny.

[EDIT][X]Servitude, to start. We can always choose to murderfest it up and conquer everything if that doesn't work.... kind of hard to stop being a conquering tyrant and chillax, though.

 

[X] Disgaea 1 it shall be, dood!

Your last memory is of your thousand, thousand eyes each watching a different scene. Some you recognize; you’ve seen a lot in centuries of life/un-life. Some you don’t. Random events, bloodshed and carnage, scenes of horror; some goodness, kindness and decency. But the goodness is mostly drowned in a sea of blood. The whole of existence – which you seem to be tuned into, for some reason - is a bloody events reel, on average. Red in tooth and claw and blade and gun. So, you know, at least you’re being entertained as your eyes slowly blink closed one by one, never to open.

And then it’s kind of like your Self is being squeezed through a straw, an amorphous mass of You-ness, your extra senses crushed down into something more closely approximating ordinary and then covered in smooth, thick, oddly rubbery skin. And then you’re standing before a … tribunal of penguins? Even for you - whoever you are - there’s some things you have to take a second look and go ‘what the fuck?’ And then you’re flying, metaphysically, or maybe actually flying, it’s hard to tell what’s happening. Events are… confused.

Whatever just happened, you’re now staring at a very brief outfit – black leather, very classy - covering a very brief chest hovering right about eye-level. It’s a girl, of course. You discover this when she skips backwards to avoid being squashed under you. Using legs is trickier than you remember. Might be because they’re basically toothpicks on the ends of a very squat, roly-poly body. Its not like you care about your appearance of course; you change bodies like other people change clothes. Or… you did? Perhaps. In any case, you’re basically a penguin now.

Something about the girl breeds recognition. Something in the hair, and the red eyes, or maybe the miniskirt… except shouldn’t her boobs be bigger…? Nope, it’s gone.

Also, you remember her being a lot more compliant. You were always the one giving the orders in that relationship.

“Oh geez, this batch is going to be worse than usual,” she toes your pudgy form. “All right, on your feet, layabout! I’m going to need some back-up to get in to see the Prince. Competent back-up would be nice, but I was a little short on mana right now, so you’ll have to do.”

Yes, this one’s a lot shriller. In fact, that nagging is starting to remind you of something, too…

“Are you even listening? Try and keep up, prinny. I need to sneak inside the castle, find the Prince, get him up and use him for my own ends… and then…” she drifts off into some kind of daydream that seems to involve crushing something very enthusiastically with her boot. “So I need you sorry fools to make a distraction to let me get inside.”

“You really think that without the Control Art Restrictions I’ll just - did you say ‘make a scene’?” You can do that. You can so do that.

It’s a pretty nice castle. Yours was bigger, of course. But bonus points for the absurd architecture, and being over an actual lake of lava.

The front gate is also guarded in its entirety by one green guy with one patch of bright red hair and no shirt.

You wave a flipper to get attention. “Okay, whatever-your-name-is-“

“Etna. Master Etna to you scrubs.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve got this.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Okay, impress me.”

“Hello!” you call up to the guy manning the portcullis.

The green man says, bored, “Solicitors will be fed to the manticore-” when a bullet splatters most of his face, turning his skull into a crater of purple-ish blood.

You pull a second gun out of the pouch wrapped around your middle, silver where the first was shining black. Both look entirely too big to fit in there, being about the size of your flippers, each. “Mm, a little blood to get the heart pumping-”

“What the hell was that for!” the green guy shouts down, still standing minus one face.

If you had teeth instead of a beak right now, you would be smiling so hard. ...Oh, there they are, they were just hiding. Retractable teeth, that's... not new, but certainly novel! You rack the slide with the help of said beak, and point both guns directly at the zombie.

You wonder briefly at how that face-crater can manage ‘worried’, what with it lacking facial features. Or how he’s talking. Then you’re too busy shooting him to care about any of that. His left arm gets blown off at the elbow on the fifth shot, and the other arm is gone by the 9th. After the 15th you could probably see daylight through his torso if there was any light around here that wasn’t shed by the glowing lava.

By the 37th shot, the zombie has basically been reduced to a purple smear on the rock. You nudge a chunk of skull off the walkway and watch it burn up in the lava. You feel… cleansed.

You also hope they have a good cleaning service.

“You could just have just made something up to let us inside,” Etna points out.

You shrug.

“Most demons don’t even care enough to actually do their jobs, he probably would have let us inside even if we hadn’t said anything,” she muses.

You shrug. Don't care.

“Yeah, probably could have just walked right- eh, whatever.” She shrugs back at you. A woman after your own heart, if you had one of those things.

You notice the other penguin-things seem to be cowering behind a twisted, pitiful excuse for a tree. You wonder why. The black leather girl coos, “So be a dear and make with the distraction, okay?”

[X] Well, if she insists. Nothing says ‘distraction’ like the castle coming down around you.
[X] You’d rather meet this Prince of hers. The prinnies should be good for a distraction.
[X] Something else?

 

[X]-Well, if she insists. Nothing says 'distraction' like the castle coming down around you... except... this castle DOES have a nice moat-the lava is quite fetching. Maybe we should just repaint it and call it our own? Red's a nice color-and I'm certain the current inhabitants are personally carrying PLENTY of paint.
[X]-'Yes, there you go,one distraction... what? You needed some of them alive? ...Are you sure we can't get more people? We can? Then we're good.'

 

[X] Well, if she insists. Nothing says ‘distraction’ like the castle coming down around you.

 

[X] Well, if she insists. Nothing says ‘distraction’ like the castle coming down around you.

 

[X]-Well, if she insists. Nothing says 'distraction' like the castle coming down around you... except... this castle DOES have a nice moat-the lava is quite fetching. Maybe we should just repaint it and call it our own? Red's a nice color-and I'm certain the current inhabitants are personally carrying PLENTY of paint.
[X]-'Yes, there you go,one distraction... what? You needed some of them alive? ...Are you sure we can't get more people? We can? Then we're good.'

 

No love for having a corpse throne and saying we claimed it when Etna gets back from her lengthy prince-waking? I totally get the fun of a crashed castle, but don't you think she might notice it falling apart around her?

I just want to mess with her head, here-a prinny, ANY prinny, deserves to.

 

[X]-Well, if she insists. Nothing says 'distraction' like the castle coming down around you... except... this castle DOES have a nice moat-the lava is quite fetching. Maybe we should just repaint it and call it our own? Red's a nice color-and I'm certain the current inhabitants are personally carrying PLENTY of paint.

[X]-'Yes, there you go,one distraction... what? You needed some of them alive? ...Are you sure we can't get more people? We can? Then we're good.'

 

[x]I would be my pleasure. Rat's to me! There's blood to be spilled.

 

[X]-Well, if she insists. Nothing says 'distraction' like the castle coming down around you... except... this castle DOES have a nice moat-the lava is quite fetching. Maybe we should just repaint it and call it our own? Red's a nice color-and I'm certain the current inhabitants are personally carrying PLENTY of paint.

[X]-'Yes, there you go,one distraction... what? You needed some of them alive? ...Are you sure we can't get more people? We can? Then we're good.'

 

[X]-Well, if she insists. Nothing says 'distraction' like the castle coming down around you... except... this castle DOES have a nice moat-the lava is quite fetching. Maybe we should just repaint it and call it our own? Red's a nice color-and I'm certain the current inhabitants are personally carrying PLENTY of paint.

[X]-'Yes, there you go,one distraction... what? You needed some of them alive? ...Are you sure we can't get more people? We can? Then we're good.'

 

Okay, gonna leave the artquests to people that are actually good at it. Well, one more for the road.
[img width=463 height=600]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo289/dyslexicfaser/Prinnycard1_zps871a6ea5.jpg[/img]


[X]-Well, if she insists. Nothing says 'distraction' like the castle coming down around you... except... this castle DOES have a nice moat-the lava is quite fetching. Maybe we should just repaint it and call it our own? Red's a nice color-and I'm certain the current inhabitants are personally carrying PLENTY of paint.

[X]-'Yes, there you go,one distraction... what? You needed some of them alive? ...Are you sure we can't get more people? We can? Then we're good.'


Your peg legs click on the stones as you walk up to the door and give it a knock.

“Did you send off those door-to-door salesmen?” someone inside inquires. “Overlord’s balls, they get everywhere these days.”

“How did they not hear what you did to that zombie?” Etna wonders.

“Does it matter?” You say. Judging from where the voice came from, they’d be standing riiiiight… abooouut…

Your bullets - .454 explosive rounds that have in the past gone through doors, walls and people with equal ease - actually ricochet off the wooden door. You ignore ‘Master’ Etna’s shrill “Hey!” as one brushes her ear. You don’t even think you scratched the damn thing.

“Is someone shooting a gun out there? Idiot! This door is made of Zaqqum wood! It’s basically indestructible!”

“Then how did they cut it into a door?” Etna wonders.

“They hear us talking through the door but not all those bullets earlier?” One of the prinnies adds. It finishes hastily, “Uh, dood.”

“What do I look like, a tree expert?” the voice complains. “Find a wood golem if you’re that curious.”

You stick your head and upper body through the door like it doesn’t even exist.

“Oh,” the woman – a short-haired brunette with an impressive rack in ruffles, bows, corset and some kind of seal serving as a skirt - on the side says softly.

“Yeah,” you return cheerily. A very nice castle indeed, you see. Utilitarian cobblestone overlaid with dark carpeting. Understated. Chic. It could use some red, though. Lots and lots of red.

Another one – a blonde in a floor-length, shoulder-less evening dress and matching manacles – asks, annoyed, “Aren’t you supposed to be able to see the future? Why didn’t you see that coming?”

“Shut up,” the short-haired one replies cleverly.

“Well, best get on with the distraction,” you muse.

The rounds that proved inadequate against the door work just fine on the swordswoman, punching through her chest and splattering a rain of blood and viscera against some kind of pale barrier the blonde put up.

“Not very civic-minded, are you,” you chat. If she’d screened for her friend to attack, this might have been harder. You fire off a few more shots into the barrier. It holds as she retreats, though one of the ricochets does injure another one of those zombies that was edging around the obstruction. This could be fun!

You kick the distracted zombie, intending to knock him into a sword-wielding woman with a ponytail but instead getting one of your stubby legs caught in his ribcage. Then there’s a few entertaining seconds as the green fellow actually tears his own head off and tries to beat you to death with it while you use the zombie attached to your leg as a bludgeon to block the whirling axe of one of the human-shaped ones, a male wearing a hilarious midriff shirt.

“Hey, quit it!” The zombie’s head demands, but the warrior just shrugs apologetically as he keeps hacking at your zombie shield.

Then you’re distracted by a feathery arrow sprouting from your eye and lodged into your brain. With your new form’s eyes spaced so far apart, it’s almost impossible to tell where it came from, though a likely culprit is the woman you spot half-hidden behind a stall counter clutching a bow. You send a few rounds at her just in case it was her, but with only one eye stuck almost on the side of your head you just blast the shop to bits around her. You distinctly remember being able to shoot people from miles distant with perfect accuracy at some point, but that currently doesn’t seem to be working.

Then you catch fire. You begin to laugh, even as your flesh burns. They certainly aren’t rolling over for you, and that pleases you. A sword pierces through your rubbery hide from behind, twists, and tears back through your left side, almost cutting you in half. The swordswoman with the ponytail and the wrapped chest got around your blind side!

“Got you!” she crows enthusiastically.

You punch her with your off-flipper, hearing something snap as she foolishly blocks with her arm rather than her sword. You grab your upper half and forcefully slam it back down against the bottom, mangled flesh sealing itself. It’s hard to get a hold of the arrow in your eye socket, slick with blood as it is. And because your arm is a damn flipper. You miss the days of bullets. In, out, no fuss.

Zombies are rising from the ground like root vegetables. You kick what’s left of your zombie shield at the axe-wielding warrior, and – is that a dragon stomping down the hall towards you? And some kind of purple winged gargoyle in a skirt right behind him? This place is great!

Oh, and there’s ‘Master’ Etna sneaking around behind a girl in a miniskirt with long red hair waving a stick.
---
Etna groans and tosses the spent Vulcan into the pile of things that she had tried and failed to wake the Prince with. Giant drills, spiked balls and chain, swords… “What does it take to wake this brat up? And what the hell is this thing made of?”

The coffin the prince is resting in didn’t even budge as she, feeling spiteful, gives it one of her prized prinny-kick techniques. She could have cleared the goalposts in a game of prinny-ball with a kick like that, but now – nothing!

… Huh. She hadn’t noticed before what with her own efforts, but things have gotten quiet out there. She could use a break anyway before taking another crack at it. She peeks out to see if the castle’s denizens – once the vassals of the Overlord, though now basically squatters – have finished off that prinny.

She wipes her eyes. Poor red prinny. He’d done his best, which was way more than anyone would expect of a prinny. She’d be sure to remember the name of the noble sacrifice… uh… whatever his name might happen to be.

She notices the long hallway must be on a slant or an incline or something (demons, not the best architects), because blood is slowly running downhill and dripping into the lava pool somebody’s piped into the throne room for ambiance. Or maybe somebody had dug down until they hit lava and nobody ever bothered to fix it.

Aside from that, the throne room is empty. Though it sounds like someone is returning after all, because she can just barely hear…

“Oh god, it's everywhere, dood.”
Another prinny nods. “These carpets will never be the same again. Or the floors. Or the wall tapestries. Blood is such a bother to get out of wool.” As an afterthought, he adds, “Dood.”
“What did you do to this poor dragon, dood!”
“This is just really… wow. Really artistic. The way the corpse piles draw attention to the river of blood is really nice. I think I might be in love, dood.”
The other prinnies – and it is her prinnies – turn to look at the lagging one. “Dood, what?”

“Prinny Squad, focus!" She snaps. "What the hell happened, guys?”

“Distraction complete,” the prinny leading the parade, the red one, says.

“And… is anyone still-”

“All dead.”

Etna thinks about it for a few moments.

One of the prinnies whines in the lull, “Do we have to collect EVERYONE's skull dood?”
Alucard says, “Yes. This place could definitely use a skull throne.”
“But dood, this is really-“
Alucard taps a flipper to his chin in thought. “You know, prinny skulls might look nice as décor instead. I do favor a bird motif…”
“COLLECTING SKULLS SIR DOOD!”

Etna nods. “Okay, screw it, you’re the Prince now.” The deviless grins a devil-may-care grin.

She slaps a pair of hair extensions on the red prinny’s head, backwards-sweeping bangs that they stretch halfway down his back past his little demonic wings. She nods rapidly. “Oh yeah, you look just like him! This’ll work just fine. Now let’s go put the fear of you into your new vassals, okay?”

Your (Alucard’s) response?
[X] … Okay? Needs a hat, though. Can’t rule all I survey without fine headwear.
[X] It’s been a while since I last ran a country. Let’s get to it.
[X] Pass. You be the Prince. I have things to do. (Suggestions?)

 

Seems we are the generic prinny that Etna labelled Laharl in Etna mode. Besides the obvious, we've also entered an Etna mode with Laharl actually alive, rather than legitimately dead. Fun fun.

[X] … Okay? Needs a hat, though. Can’t rule all I survey without fine headwear. Something that would be good for moonlight strolls-there is a moon here, right? Excellent.
- - [X] It’s been a while since I last ran a country. How does this go again-impale everyone that disagrees with you and prop them up like scarecrows, sow fear and misery, something like that? ...What's that look?
- - [X] What was that-there's a coffin behind the throneroom, and the room's got stained glass windows? Dibs. ...There's a body there already? We can clear that up!


(Okay maybe this WON'T be a living Laharl version. Or it will. Who knows!)

 

[X] … Okay? Needs a hat, though. Can’t rule all I survey without fine headwear.
- - [X] It’s been a while since I last ran a country. Let’s get to it.
- - [X] What was that-there's a coffin behind the throneroom, and the room's got stained glass windows? Dibs. ...There's a body there already? We can clear that up!

 

[X] … Okay? Needs a hat, though. Can’t rule all I survey without fine headwear.
- - [X] It’s been a while since I last ran a country. Let’s get to it.
- - [X] What was that-there's a coffin behind the throneroom, and the room's got stained glass windows? Dibs. ...There's a body there already? We can clear that up!

 

[X] It’s been a while since I last ran a country. Let’s get to it.

This is utterly delightful.