Riptear stood at the top of the hill and viewed the once-glorious city of Seyruun. Its buildings where reduced to rubble, its peoples scattered or dead, its royal family in exhile. The city crawling with mazoku and the mindless human servants and followers of the Dark Mage Malachai. Rip wanted to kill every single creature there, but she knew it wouldn't be possible, not now, not yet. When she was a bit younger, just before she set out into the world, she dabbled with the power she was born with, a power that she could not yet control and did not yet understand. She brought herself onto the Astral Plane and encountered a creature of terrible power. That vile creature summoned by Malachai. Tango was his name, Tango the Hellcat. She was vain then, bitterly vain, and engaged the vile beast, only to end up near dead in a pool of her own blood at the doorstep of her beloved human family, with the Hellcat's venom tearing through her body. Being half mazoku, her body managed to fight the venom, but not before it dismantled much of her magick power. Her strength as sorceress and swordswoman was devastating, but not even a flicker to what she could be capable of, before the attack. Before the Hellcat. Now, after the Mazoku Revolution, her foster brother, along with the great sorceress Lina Inverse, the chimeric shaman Zelgadis, and the Seyruun princess where missing and in exhile, believed to be dead. Her mission now was to find them, find them and get revenge. The whole world and the fate of every peaceloving creature in it seemed to rest on her shoulders as she stood there, staring thoughtfully and silently from the hill at the once-flourishing city.
Riptear was known by many names. To her people she was known as Morgan Falkner, the maiden name given to her by her now-dead Horusian father, killed by the claws of her own mazoku mother. Her human family called her Fukuroh and the mazoku referred to her as "Riptear". She had been first referred to by that name by the vile Hellcat, and since then the title stuck. Mostly though, she was referred to only by the name of Rip. Rip the Bastard, Rip the succubus, she was known by many names. She lived her life bitter and alone. Rogue mercenary by trade, she trusted no one, and helped no one unless it would line her pockets. Even though her mission now did not line her pockets, it posed a very high price indeed.
Rip was petite, only standing at about 5'4", with a slender, yet athletic build. She had long, true blue hair tied back in a ponytail. She wore a black trenchcoat with matching black fatigues and boots, and blue knuckle gloves with a matching blue shirt, each as blue as her hair. The scarlet red feathers mixed in with the blue atop her head, her hawk-like blood-red accipitrine eyes, pointed ears and talon-like hands revealed her Horusian ancestry. Her pale, sheet-white face and pronounced canines revealed her mazoku blood. A long facial scar streaked across her right eye, one of many scars she had recieved from that battle long ago, a battle which almost killed her.
She saw her opportunity. The streets where quiet, not a thing stirred. The moon was high and full, casting an eerie glow on the city below. The demons where stirring, to be sure, but they did not make themselves known. And neither would she. She crept into the city streets like a panther out of the dark. She blended into the shadows and became one with them, dancing their nighttime dance in the lonely streets and in the broken windows. She was like the thing people feared at night. The thing that lurked under one's bed, or just outside one's window. She was that peculiar stirring noise in one's closet, or that faint breath of air that would cause one's flesh to crawl.
She saw the despicable traitor ahead, talking in hushed tones to the large stooped figure of the ogre before him. Once a commander for one of Seyruun's forces, he was promised power by Malachai and greedy human nature forbid him from refusing. Humans, such wretched creatures. She moved in close, enveloped in the shadows, so close her breath could be felt against the back of his neck. The man shuddered, sensing gooseflesh on his neck, but shrugged it off as the cold wind. Rip's movements where slow and fluid, she moved, acted and looked like that of a deadly predator. Her hand slipped gracefully to the sword strapped to her back. It was like a katana, with a gryphon's head pommel with ruby-red jewel encrusted eyes. She drew the blade slowly, carefully. The moonlight played on its blade, dancing along the ancient runes that ran along the blade. It seemed to sense and thirst the coming of blood like a hawk in Yarak, and began to glow an eerie blue.
The greed-stricken man never knew what hit him. A flash of blue light, like quicksilver streaked across his throat, faster than one could blink an eye. He let out a gurgled scream just before his decapitated head fell from his shoulders. His body fell limp and twitching, still pumping fresh, warm blood which spilled out upon the streets. The ogre backed up and let out a roar of surprise, but it did not even have time to react. The killing blade hovered in the shadows for a time, its blue light casting a weird glow on everything around it, outlining the facial features of the horror-stricken ogre. The assassin then disengaged itself from the shadows, melting from them like dark fluid and taking the form of an opponent much smaller than itself, her eyes glowing ruby red in the darkness. A high-pitched whinny erupted from the assassin's throat, which sounded not unlike an agitated, angry or threatened owl. The feathers atop her head rose to a full crest of scarlet red. With one fluid motion she swung the blade again, tearing the ogre's belly open and spilling its entrails all about. It happened so fast the creature had no time to heal itself and it fell to the ground in a spray of blood and viscera.
Rip ever-so-calmly bent down and cleaned her blade on the ground. She then turned to the decapitated body on the ground and began rummaging through the dead man's pockets. She fished out some scrolls, maps and other such letters. She filed through them and found that they held information and locations to various prisons and strongholds under Malachai's command, including prison logs. If there was any information on her lost brother or his comrades, they would probably be there, or else death would be the only other option in their case. She had formed a mental link with her foster brother early on in life and, somehow he felt as if he still lived, as if an instinct was telling her so. She only hoped that instinct was right. With a grunt of satisfaction she slipped out of the Seyruun city screets as fast as the going wind, and disappeared into the shadows of the dense forest before she could be detected by the evil within the city.