Upon my right hand I beheld new anguish, new torments, and new wielders of the lash... -XVIII Inferno
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Early Life[]
Rapalion doesn't remember much about his life as an angel. When he took up with Lucifer, he submitted to a spell that robbed him of most of his past and causes him excruciating pain whenever he tries to defy it. The effects of this spell have weakened in his exile, but there is no more powerful magic than Lucifer's, and it will likely require the death of the Dark Lord himself for Rapalion to regain what he's given up.
What he has managed to recall is that he was born in Heaven's northern forests, the son of a prominent angel, and worked as a tailor in the eons leading up to Lucifer's rebellion. He was quiet and kept to himself, and this made his peers suspicious of him. When talk of secession reached his community, he took an interest. He opened his ears to propaganda and was immediately seduced by promises of autonomy in Lucifer's new state. The opportunity to join Lucifer's separatists came when the secession argument erupted into violence and the movement became a militia. Rapalion joined the conflict, taking to brutality easily, and he quickly became known as "Lucifer's Scourge" among both friends and enemies fighting in the north. He enjoyed this status until the exodus.
In Lucifer's Service
Rapalion was among Lucifer's rebels when, outmatched by the Celestial army, they fled Heaven, splitting the etheric plane into Celestial and Infernal. There, like the others, he succumbed to the subtle but powerful and pervasive influence of Lucifer's corruption. As Lucifer's rule turned out to be far more oppressive than that of Heaven, Rapalion's status as a hero evaporated and he was pressed into service as a lowly Tormentor, tasked with torturing the souls of humans drawn into the dark by evil powers. Denied the freedom he'd been promised, he chafed under the yoke of the Black Hand and defied them often in spite of the painful punishments they levied upon him. He sired many children with the beings he tortured in his work, most of whom also joined the ranks of the Tormentors.
Naieda
Lilith and Rapalion were involved in a series of trysts during which Lilith became pregnant. As Lilith has ties to the Black Hand, her involvement with a demon of such low stature as Rapalion was an offensive for which Rapalion could be tortured and killed. Compounding the issue, Lilith gave Rapalion a daughter, Naieda. Fearing for himself and for her, Rapalion attempted to hide Naieda from the Black Hand, but he was quickly found out. Feeling betrayed by a soldier who'd once been a hero in his service, Lucifer himself handed down a sentence which would see both Rapalion and his daughter punished: Rapalion was to lower his daughter into the Everlasting Fire. Rapalion refused even under threat of death, prompting Lucifer to briefly possess him and send Naieda into the flame. After this event, Lucifer ordered Rapalion executed. Pursued by Lucifer's demonic enforces, Rapalion fled, escaping to the Terrestrial Plane in the vain hope of moving onward to find sanctuary on the Celestial. Seriously impeded by the physical limitations upon his ethereal form, Rapalion was forced to possess the human, Ray Archer. He is still hunted by Hell's forces.
Ray
Desperate to escape the forces of Hell, Rapalion insinuated himself into the body and mind of 16-year-old Ray Archer. Having little knowledge of possession, the bond he made with Ray was malformed and dangerous. His presence affected Ray's mood, arousing the suspicion of Ray's parents, who attempted an exorcism. The procedure failed because the Archers called upon a priest to perform it instead of a mage, but it was sufficiently traumatizing for the Tormentor that he attempted to submerge himself in Ray's personality. The ploy worked for a time; the Archers believed that the priest had cast him out of Ray. While he remained hidden, the bond between himself and his host grew stronger. Eventually, Rapalion's dark energies began to bleed through, corrupting the boy's friends and family in many subtle ways. Ray's life collapsed around him when his parents died. He was left homeless and, as he was legally an adult at the time, without any help from the state. He relied on Rapalion to sustain him and gradually grew more distant from society. Eventually, the pair had bonded so closely that their life essences were bound together - if Rapalion were exorcised, both he and Ray would die.
Recently, Ray and Rapalion re-bonded. The two are now much closer and enjoy a far healthier union. Neither entity has more power than the other now, whereas Rapalion originally had primary control.
Personality[]
Being a demon, Rapalion is appropriately gruff, offensive, and hyper-masculine. He is prickly and obscene, and frequently abusive even toward those he respects. Having neither any interest in nor any respect for civility, he will rarely pass up the opportunity to taunt, ridicule, or insult someone. He emotes poorly, filtering all of his feelings through aggressive bravado, and prefers frankness to subtlety even (one might say "especially") at the expense of tact. Beneath all this, however, there is a loving and devoted soul who will fight to death for the ones he holds dear. He loves Verity deeply, though he sometimes shows it through sexual subjugation and objectification. He has a big heart, but Rapalion is not soft or easy to love.
Appearance[]
Rapalion is small for a Tormentor. Standing with his spine straight, he is almost 8 feet tall, but he tends to hunch and even, when running, to lope on all fours. His body is lithe and covered in reddish, heavily chitinous skin. It's said that he appears to be made of stone and flame. His face has a crocodilian shape and look to it, and he has horns that curl out from beneath a bony, domed crest on his elongated head. He has four long, clawed fingers on each hand as well as four toes and a dew claw on each digitigrade leg. Completing his demonic look is a thick, reptilian tail that tapers, fittingly, to a whip end. His eyes and inner mouth have been shown to glow whenever he is highly aroused.
Powers and Tools[]
Petrous skin and dense bones make Rapalion highly durable, and the power of Hell flowing through him affords him incredible strength and speed. Like all Tormentors, Rapalion wields a Hellfire whip, which is made up of the cores of damned souls that have been twisted into semi-sentient fire spirits by the Everlasting Flame. These spirits are slaves to Rapalion's will; he can call the weapon into his hand with a thought. Hellfire cannot be extinguished, and it does not need fuel to continue burning. When in his natural form, Rapalion is capable of shaping this whip into something like a sword. Rapalion also wears Infernal flesh - a common form of highly adaptable armor possessed by demons of the warrior class. In his true form, this manifests as a chitinous covering over his entire body. When Rapalion is inhabiting Ray's body, the Infernal flesh is a resilient membrane of glistening black that can wrap around Ray's body to protect him from harm. In both forms, the armor can generate flexible pseudopods to aid in combat or locomotion. The maximum number of pseudopods Rapalion can generate is currently unknown. Rapalion can also create a petal not unlike a venus flytrap's capable of entrapping and absorbing enemies physically in either form.