The Ripper gets back up as blood still pours from the wound as it's healing. "It hurts... IT HURTS" He screams. "What's with this guy?!" I said. "He just won't die!" He runs at me and I pull out my pistol and BANG BANG! I fire to shots off into his head blowing it apart. His lower half of his head is still there with his mouth and tongue writhing. "We need to leave, something tells me he's Infected by a great one!" I said. Taivis runs up to him and shoves something small and sphere shaped into the opening in his head. "GET DOWN!" He jumps away and we all duck. KABOOM! The Ripper explodes into a gory red paste. "That'll give us a few minutes, we need to make our escape!" He said. We all run for the entrance but it had been caved in. "Shit! Someone blew the entrance up, someone must've planned this!" Taivis yelled. "That means we're stuck here with that lunatic... we're playing a fatal game now..." I said. I slice my hand on my sword and the blood forms over the blade. "So it's 5 against 1 unstable serial killer" I said. We start to hear the scratching of nails against the walls. "Where are you!" The Ripper can be faintly heard yelling. "He's gonna get to us eventually... he's gotta have some kind of vulnerability" Taylor said. The dimly lit room gave me an idea suddenly... this man isn't strong, just seemingly impossible to kill... so we'll restrain him somehow. "Kill any light source in this room" I flick the blood from my blade and sheathe the sword. "We'll make him think we're still running" I said. We quickly scattered around to kill any source of light and before long; the room was pitch black, beneficial for us since we had the cover of dark now to hide. I was unnerved though because I could see in the dark... a few minutes later the Ripper walked into the main room. He looked around for a minute, aimlessly walking around blind and sometimes running into the walls. It's safe to say he can't see in the dark, thankfully Taylor was able to cut the power to his exoskeleton armor to prevent him from getting caught due to the noise it creates. We sat in silence for at least 20 minutes before he left the room. We all light a small candle and set them around the room. "If we can't kill him then restraining him is our best option, but how is gonna be a task" I said. The. I remember one thing I haven't tried yet... my abilities of the dark... though with everything we've tried on him so far it's unlikely to keep him down. "Taivis, since he's not a night creature can you set up smoke screens and blanket this whole place in smoke, I've got an idea" I said. Taivis goes to work setting up smoke traps in the nearby hallways. All that's left is to set up some snares. I put a face cover and goggles. Then I hit a makeshift bell that creates a loud chime that echoes through the halls. "Let's hope he heard that" I said. The others are hiding so it's just me and the Ripper. That's when I hear it, laughing and the beating of footsteps. He turns the corner and slouched. "There you are!" He yells. I hold up a small trigger. "You and me buddy, let's dance" *click* I pull the trigger and it cuts the wires setting off the smoke screens. "Shame you won't be able to see, let's see how well you rely on just your sense of hearing" I said. My eyesight is still crystal clear despite the smoke. He stumbles around before he triggers the first snare. It snags his leg and he struggles to move. He starts slashing randomly before he manages to cut the snare. Shit... he managed to hit that one. "Where are you flesh puppet!" He yells. I lie low and slowly circle him... SLASH! He takes a swing and my direction and misses me by a few feet. He's not close to me but he's also still a hazard if I'm not careful. "C'mon Ripper, this way" I said. He runs at my voice and triggers another snare. This time he falls and it snags his left arm. Another triggers in unison and snags his right arm. "Now that you can't move, how about you just relax and enjoy being a prisoner in your own base" I said. But then he does something ghastly. His limbs stretch and contort until... SNAP! His arms are grown to a length where the snares are snapped from him pulling his arms inward. Now he stands roughly 5'9in with arms touching the ground that have turned completely grey and devoid of hair from the elbow down to his fingers. "FLESH PUPPET!" He screams. Suddenly his howling echoes and it lets off a shockwave that clears out most of the smoke. "There you are" he said. Shit! He dives at me with his freakish limbs and starts screaming and slashing. What the hell is this freak?! His legs soon follow a hideous and grotesque transformation. They break and grown, the bones audibly can be heard snapping into different positions. They are now reverse jointed, with the same sickly grey look. BOOM! His head suddenly gets blown off! Logan had Taivis rig a short fused high powered explosive but to our surprise his head grew back... but different... now with a sickly grey skin tone... no eyes, just white dots, sharp teeth, no lips, the same carved smile and no eyelids. Then he started crying. "What the hell is this guys deal?!" Logan yelled. Then he starts to cut himself up and carve his own flesh. Blood pours from him and he just cries and laughs. "What the hell?" I said. Suddenly he flies toward me. He lets out a bloodcurdling scream and I duck out of the way. He then snaps his head a full 360 degrees and screams at me sending out a shockwave. I move and it blows a hole in the wall behind me. Now he's mutated into something beyond horror... is this really what the blood of Great Ones does to people... what's worse is this man already having been a serial killer means his mind was already fractured from a early age. Taivis suddenly pulls a lever that slams a door shut in front of me sealing the Ripper behind a thick iron door. "That'll buy us a hour, let's look around and find out what's going on" He said. I grab Taivis by the collar and scowl at him. "Did you know he was afflicted by Great One blood? Well! Did you?!" I yell. "No! Like I said I just needed money for my mother, but after seeing all of this, I realize now that I was never gonna get paid, I was just gonna be used for a meat shield... thankfully you spared me" He said. I set him down and scoffed at him. "You better not be hiding anything else... otherwise I'll kill you myself" I said. I walk past the others and a silence befalls us... tension rise the longer we're here, so we start looking around the room we first found The Ripper in. "Spread out, this room is suspiciously large so it may be hiding something" I said. "Wait... I think I found something" Logan holds up a lantern to a torch holder with a torch in it. "This is the only one here, no other one is in this room" He then pulls it and it pulls downward. A loud sliding is heard and a door opens next to it. "So the Ripper had a room he kept hidden... let's see what's hidden in here" I said. We go through his stuff. Mostly papers about killings and newspaper about missing people and articles about "The Ripper strikes" but one thing struck me as interesting. A small journal. I opened it and started reading it.

  "Day 1: Father had been very angry lately... he's been taking it out on me and mother, what have we done to him lately?"
  "Day 3: Father blames mother for adopting me, he thinks that's why we no longer have money anymore and can't afford food"
  "Day 7: Father has been acting strange lately... mother is rarely home too because she's trying to find me and her a new father who will be good to us"
  "Day 19: Father... father killed mother... he cut her stomach open... why... you monster!"
  "Day 38: I've been watching father... talking with women... saying he's never been married... liar!
  "Day 40: He brought a woman home... he threw me in the basement... I was so alone... then I saw it... that same bloody knife... he had hidden it... mother would not be disgraced by that pig"
  "Day 48: Father... lies dead... headless with his spine ripped out... him and his new whore... I slit her throat and made a picture of me and mother being happy without father"
  "Day 497: I mutilated a family today, there screams were bliss, the kid was an orphan like me... abused and treated like crap... but he was hopeful for a change... so I killed him too!"

I shut the journal in disgust... just what kinda deranged thing were we dealing with. Suddenly a wave of hunger hit me. I fell to my knees. "Shit! That's not good!" I said. "Hey you okay!" Logan said. "I forgot I have to feed every so often... and I neglected to let one of the girls come with me... this could go south really fast if we don't hurry" I said. Then it hit me... what's the best way to fight a monster? With another monster... so they all hid in the secret room as I sliced my hand on the blade... used my powers as my hair grew out, my eyes glow red and I pull a chair out and sit in the dark room. A few hours later my heart is racing... though Lizzy, Cristen and Lilith can pinpoint my location... if they can sense me, they'll come for me, so if I can beat this freak down they'll be able to force they're way into the cave entrance. Soon I heard the screaming. "FlEsH PUppET!" He screamed. He stepped into the doorway... breathing heavily. "Good... huff... you're here... I'm on borrowed time... and my head isn't exactly clear... but you're my enemy... so let's go ugly" I said. "RAAAAAAAAAH!" He screams and charges at me but I roll back in the chair and kick him into the ceiling. "You're not strong, just insanely hard to kill" I said. He falls and I pull out my pistol. BANG BANG! Two rounds to the head splatters his brains. He gets up and as his head regenerates he starts thrashing around. He's in a state where without his head he's going into a violent frenzy. BANG BANG! I take shots at his legs and he evades them. So he's learning to avoid the shots... gotta start getting close now since he's learning. I get close and SLICE! I spill open his guts and he lets out a howl. He twists his spine around completely and slashes at me managing to slice my left arm. "Alright, your getting way to good at this, let's see what this does to you..." I said. He leaps at me and WHOOSH! I set off a blast of darkness into his face and he reels in pain. He tears his face apart but the tissue decays and dies... looks like I found my way to kill this freak... potentially... but this also feels wrong. I cover my fists in a black flame and the blade catches flame. He lets out a scream again aims at me. BOOM! He fired another shockwave at me blowing a hole into the ground... to my horror I am beheld a sight of terror and dread... the bodies of his victims... beneath the floor of this room... decayed, dried up and twisted and broken. "You sick monster!" I yell. "FleEeSh PUPPET! He screams. "I've had enough of you being a broken record, you're sick and sadistic, there's not a shred of remorse left in your twisted mind" I said. I run forward and SLASH! I cleave off his arm. He grabs my arm and slams me into the ground. He then notices his arm not able to grow back. "HUH... AAAAAAAH! FLESH NOT HEAL" He screams. I stand up and look at him. "No shit... it's a cleansing force for a freak like you, it's pure darkness, my blade wrapped in my blood and the power of the dark creates a perfect mix, it's alchemy at its finest if you ask me" I said. "RAAAAAAAAH!" He charges me blindly. "Bingo..." I slash right down the middle of him... splitting his skull and body in half. "Fl...esh... pup...pet" He gurgles. Blood pours from both severed sides of his body as he falls to the ground. The dark flames disperse and I fling the blood off my blade. I fall to my knees and my vision gets fuzzier. "Shit... am I really about to go feral... so much for being a father figure..." I said. I shed a single tear as I say this but suddenly... blood runs down my face... I lick the blood... that taste... I look up, it's Cristen. "Cristen? How'd you" she cuts me off by locking lips with me after biting her lip and making it bleed. I feel a sense of relief as my vision clears up and my breathing becomes clearer. "Came as quick as I could, surprised I got here on time honestly" She said. She takes my hand and holds it. "My dear... always keep me by your side... for I fear what I'd do without you" She said. She place her hand on my face and gently brushes it. Suddenly the secret door opens and the others come out. "We should probably get back and tell the others about what happened, I think the hunters association would be glad to know that the serial killer is no longer a threat to the people" Logan said. So we returned to Taylor's place.