The Seattle Rabisu was a malevolent entity from the web series The Last Stage and the main antagonist of Operation Truthless storyline. Like many other beings of demonic origin, it was an incorporeal spirit that could only manifest on Earth by possessing humans and reveled in causing chaos, pain and destruction. The Rabisu briefly possessed independent singer Stephany Owens in Seattle, Washington but was prevented from harming anyone through an ancient binding ritual performed by Joel Owens, Stephany's brother and fellow bandmate. It was accidentally freed by three U.S.S.D operatives while they searched Joel's apartment, allowing it to go on a massive killing spree throughout the country that claimed the lives of over 200 people, including Agent Quincy.
Biography[]
U.S.S.D. cells P and Q first became aware of the Rabisu's presence in Seattle during their third mission together. They were initially sent there to investigate a strange occurrence involving surveillance footage of a young man with a guitar that hypnotized bystanders into doing his bidding. Following multiple conversations with the locals, they began to suspect the independent musical duo Without Trouble comprised of siblings Joel and Stephany Owens were somehow linked to the case. They discovered that Stephany had mysteriously fallen ill six weeks prior and decided to follow Joel. It didn't take long for them to realize Joel was visibly nervous about something; he avoided talking to other people and constantly looked behind himself as if he was terrified of being watched.
Joel Owens' apartment as drawn by Joshua McLaughlin
As Parker, Quick and Quincy infiltrated Joel's apartment to look for clues, they noticed that sticky notes with the word Door written on them were placed on every door in the room. They started to hear a faint weeping sound shortly afterwards and decided to search for the source. After inspecting every other room, they found Stephany tied to a chair with several scars around her mouth as if she has been tortured. Quincy attempted to untie her with his combat knife when she abruptly unhinged her jaw like a snake and tore apart the ropes with her teeth. She managed to incapacitate Quincy by chomping on his neck but was unable to attack the others before Parker and Quick both start shooting her. Although their bullets made short work of Stephany, a red orb of energy shot out from her corpse and disappeared without a trace as it laughed maniacally. The creature then went on a rampage across Seattle, moving from body to body in order to murder as many people as possible.
The Rabisu flied across the nightclub Patrick and Phillips had been looking into, prompting them to call Sergeant Diaz, the police officer that showed them the security footage to help with damage control. Shortly afterwards, Joel sprinted past them. Patrick and Phillips both attempted to probe him for information on the creature, but were prevented from doing so by his bodyguards. At this point, Diaz arrived and stopped Joel from leaving by bumping into him. Before they could ask him anything however, a large explosion occurred in downtown Seattle. Using this opportunity, Patrick finally caught up with Joel and persuaded him to explain what was happening. Joel revealed that Stephany was possessed by the Rabisu during a recording session. After multiple doctors stated they didn't know what was wrong with her, Joel went to the Johnson's, a married couple of paranormal investigators for help.
They were able to perform a binding ritual that prevented the Rabisu from harming anyone else, but Joel was still dissatisfied with the lack of results. Since Without Trouble's talent manager was the only other person present at the recording, he became convinced Mr. Dark was responsible for Stephany's condition. Mr. Dark brushed off this accusation as complete nonsense when Joel confronted him about it and threatened to end his music career. After this, Joel discovered he had gained the ability to hypnotize people and attempted to brainwash someone so he could transfer the Rabisu into another host. However, he choose to not go through with it at the last minute when he felt guilty for almost sacrificing an innocent man. By the end of the story, the Rabisu had moved past the Seattle boarder, so Patrick called in helicopters so they could follow it. Joel entered the helicopter where Quincy was receiving medical treatment for his injuries, which proved disastrous when the Rabisu transformed into a physical form. It descended towards the helicopter, and crashed into it, splitting it into two pieces. It then opened a gateway to an alternate dimension that sucked in what was left of the helicopter, killing everyone on board.
In the aftermath of Operation Truthless, Cell A discovered Mr. Dark was an alias of Rutiger deSauveterre, the man who gave Casey Wolfe the paintbrush connected to The Abstract Concept of Hate. The Detachment made capturing deSauveterre its main priority and started searching for any new leads on his current whereabouts.
Appearance[]
Since the Rabisu was originally found by the U.S.S.D. when it was still possessing Stephany Owens, it was initially described as an ordinary woman in her early twenty's. However, inhabiting Stephany's body caused her mouth to become severely mangled and scarred, especially around the lip area, and her tongue was missing. These wounds and the convincing look of terror on the Rabisu's face allowed it to trick the Detachment into thinking Joel had been tormenting his sister for six consecutive weeks. There were also two doorknobs and an inscription written in ancient Akkadian placed on the its lap as part of the ritual used to bind it to the apartment.
The Rabisu's true form appeared to be a large disembodied sphere of glowing red energy floating in the air. It was, however, capable of making this form tangible for a short period of time. It used this ability to ram itself into the helicopter Agent Quincy and Joel were in before it sucked them and their pilot into another plane of existence.
Trivia[]
- The Seattle Rabisu is based on Rabisu from Akkadian mythology, an evil vampiric spirit or demon that menaces the entranceways to houses and hides in dark corners, lurking to attack people.
- Rabisu are not common monsters in the universe depicted in The Last Stage, as confirmed by Andrea's offhand comment "Good, so those are real too. I'll add that to the file." when she was told about them.
- The ritual used to trap the Rabisu was based on the short horror film The Many Doors of Albert Whale.
- It was the first monster in the series to successfully kill a main protagonist.