The Castle (IC) [M] {04}

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel released the unconscious rat's hand slowly, staring suspiciously as he might be faking unconciousness as the frog approached.  She responded to his question, "Ian went berserk and began shooting up the hall. But something put him headfirst into the wall. I think he has a brain injury." She was about to say more when she heard a voice calling her. "Aisha?" She looked down the hallway into the darkness. "Where are you Aisha?" The voice was faint. "I am going to look down the hall. Keep an eye on the sharpshooter. If he starts to wake up call out."

Mel moved into darker part of the hall, darkening her white scales to a dull shade that matched her long grey coat to keep from standing out too much. "Aisha? Is that you?" She crept forward until she saw familiar red eyes peering through webbing. Spider web. That could explain Ian's bizarre behavior. "What is going on Aisha?"

[lucas marcone]

Ian was fadeing in and out at irregular intervals. "Who? Who's there? Ugh....Kaeton...she's working for...the spider." And like that Ian was back out if it and was some where picking daisys in lala land.

[Aisha deCabre]

"Mel?"  Aisha called once more as she crept carefully down the hall, trying to keep herself as alert as possible, until finally the source of the scent was found: A thick barrier of strong, elastic silk wove across her path like a crude and messy spider's web.  To her ever-fearful thoughts, that's just what it could have been, and the thought only made her snarl while trying to find a way through.  If SHE is back, so help me...

That's when she heard the dragon's familiar voice, on the other side of the webbing.  She could make out her form through a slit or two in the barrier.  She wondered as to the extent of the webbing...how much of it had been in that hallway, and just how strong was it?  She had to repress the urge to slice, burn, or claw through it.  But at least the dragon was safe.

"Thank goodness I found you," Aisha breathed, shaking her head.  "I got woken up, told there was trouble.  I heard voices downstairs...strangers, amiga.  Rushed up here.  I have no idea as to where they're headed, but...but this can't be good," she waved a hand across the web barrier, denoting it...her eyes were wide now with a mix of different things: fear, fury, concern.  There she was...now the others...

"You see what happened?"

[Stygian]

Stygian looked between Cogidubnus and Rynkura, and nodded as well. 'Yes, but can they make it here? The spider and Keaton are both on the loose. What is our...' he said. He didn't have time to finish the sentence though, before Bambi's glowing butterflies made their interruption, and the bat was startled into silence.
   Halfway through the butterflies' semi-cryptic message, Stygian waved the ones in his face away with a careless hand, turning them into wispy trails of fading light. 'Ignore her. The library's got too many exits. We need some place that's open, but that we can still bottleneck. If we...'
   Stygian stopped, and blinked. For a moment he held absolutely still, the calm that he had previously lacked seeming to wash over him in full. He turned his head and eyes to the side, slowly, looking at the dark end of the corridor. After a second, he spoke.
   'Pain.'
   The bat swept his arm out, leaving his gun in its holster. As he did, his shirt changed shape, darkening, and with a gust of wind a large wing, black as night, tore out of his back, stretching down the hallway before erupting into fiendish shapes, swarming in Keaton's direction.
   'Come here!' the bat snarled, his voice on fire.

[Sunblink]

Off to the side, just as Keaton was preparing her body to pounce, she felt an irreversible tremor race through her muscles, followed quickly by an equally uncontrollable series of quakes and shudders, originating from something almost ephemeral, almost imperceptible. Despite how physically unnoticeable they were, the quivers brought on something horrible: something neglected, making Keaton's mind reel and her heart skip a beat, making it pound like a drum in her ribcage. Sweat started to bead on her forehead as her eyes dashed along the length of the tentacle-scythes, brandished so threateningly as a juxtaposition to the inexplicable shock and terror and... pain of their owner.

Do it.

Keaton shut her eyes tightly, ears lying flat. Her heart was pounding in her ears, something was screaming at her from the darkness. Same darkness which had bestowed her such augmented senses, but had smothered her mind and reasoning and free will in the process. Bloody lightning ran like jagged streaks through her head, leaving behind livid, infuriated agony.

DO IT.

"I..." Keaton whispered, pupil pinpricked, the glow of her opposite, artificial eye having died down to a spark. Eyes squeezed shut. "I do--I j--"

"Pain."

Keaton's eyes snapped open. In the pit of her mind, she felt something swell, then rip forward from the abyss as darkness manifested from darkness, taking the form of distant shapes and twisted monstrosities. And they were headed right for her, swarming forth in a rushing stream of barbaric abominations and writhing shadows.

He was going to kill her.

There was no other explanation--he was going to--shit, he was going to KILL HER--

"Come here!"

Pupil pinpricked again, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, until they were invisible in the whites of her eyes. Cold sweat trickled down Keaton's forehead, something welled up in her organic eye, and she felt something screaming, screaming, SCREAMING in her head...

But as red flared in the pit of Keaton's pupil and crimson encompassed the once golden-saffron glow of her artificial eye-stone, it went completely unregarded. Keaton dashed forward, pushing her body into motion, feeling all resistance fade and her anger at the people who hurt her dark mistress overflow those protesting, weak emotions, beating them down until they crumpled in a bloodied heap at the bottom of her subconscious. Catapulting herself through the air, she whirled over the heads of one of the malignant heads, sweeping the tentacle-scythes about as purple-violet electricity and red sparks leaped along their lengths.

"YOU WANT ME, BASTARD?!" Keaton shrieked at the top of her lungs. Saffron-sable scythes spiraled through the air, intending to hack and slash at Stygian's body until he was nothing but a bisected, pulpy mess left to coagulate on the ground. "HERE I AM! DIE, YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!"

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

Just as Keaton was about to strike, the jackal felt her heart skip another beat. Stygian's dark eyes were focused straight at her, his face composed and hard as stone. He's ready for it...! The thought passed in the flicker of an eye. Then something dark swept out before her and obscured her view. Her scything tentacles bit something hard and cold, and the next instant she felt her fur and skin rip in a few places. Stygian's wing hit her square on, flattened her against it, and sent her sprawling back in the direction from where she came. She tumbled along the hard floor, the air painfully beaten out of her lungs.
   Standing straight again and closing his feet after having braced for Keaton's attack with his side, Stygian growled under his breath as he swung back his other wing and took a step, beginning to walk toward her, slowly and cautiously watching. 'I'll hold her,' he said. 'Then you deal with it, Cog.'

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel shook her head at Aisha. "I was awakened by Bam's voice talking about monsters. Then I heard noises in the corridor, like a fight. I went out to find blood on the floor and Ian unconscious. He woke up and started shooting wildly, nearly hitting Ketefe and myself. I left Ketefe and Jeremiah watching him. Now we need to get you over here with us and go find the others." The dragon began looking at the web barrier strung across the hallway. "I do not see any particular magic on this. I believe it is only a physical barrier." She cautiously scraped at the point it attached to the wall with one claw. "Strong and sticky. It would be horrid to cut. Please step back a bit, Aisha. The area is going to get unpleasantly cold." The spell took a minute, but she soon had the center of the web frozen to the point where it became brittle. A quick hit and the web shattered as if it had been spun of glass. The slightly warmer bits at the edges stood like jagged metalwork decorations.

[Angel]

Ketefe walked up to Ian shortly after Mel left. She stooped next to him and examined his injures. "Who am I kidding... I don't know what to do for this kind of thing. Where's Rynkura when you need her?" Before she could get a response to her rhetorical question, a little butterfly flew in front of her and a voice in her head (that sounded a little like Bam) told her in riddle-speak to go to the library. She decided to wait and see if Jeremiah would get one before going.

[Sunblink]

Shortly after her view was obscured and Keaton felt her flesh and fur lacerate, Keaton felt her heart inflate unpleasantly, to the point she could nearly feel it touch her ribcage. Wind and air was evacuated from her lungs as she was slapped to the ground by Stygian's wing, her back slamming against the ground with a subtle crack. Nothing too severe, but Keaton assumed that the joint of her tail had been fractured, according to the rocky pain rocketing up her spine. Keaton twitched and groaned on the ground, thrashing about, tentacles fluctuating in-between their scythe-like forms.

On the floor, Keaton stared off into space, head lolling to the side as a strange, trance-like state came over her. Unconsciously, her eyes locked onto one of the places where her skin had been torn, just on the sinewy muscle of her arm.

Her pupil dilated.

She was bleeding. Just subtly, a thin maroon line of syrupy blood dripping from the shallow wound. One would normally be clinical, examining it and claiming it as no more than a superficial injury, but in Keaton's agitated state of mind, this only confirmed her paranoid belief that Stygian was going to kill her.

Especially when he was approaching her.

Keaton's pupils were merely pinpricks as she watched him advance on her, staring with an absolute sense of horror akin to that of a frightened, cornered dog's. Her scythe-tentacles tensed, muscles clenching, and the hand still, instinctually clutching Catastrophe's pommel gripped to the point her knuckles ached and she swore she felt a vessel in her blood pop. She wanted desperately to flee, to scramble onto her feet and run for her life, but she knew that they'd stop her somehow. He would pin her down, and they would kill her, by strangling her or cutting open her throat and watching her choke on her own blood or or or--

Keaton screamed. In a last-ditch effort for self-preservation, she swung the largest scythe she had conjured at Stygian, the crescent-shaped blade lengthening and turning pitch black with concentrated energy, sable spidering across the saffron until its entire body was a lusterless, atramentous shade. "BURN IN HELL!" Keaton screeched, clenching her eyes shut, "GET AWAY GET AWAY GET AWAY--"

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bam has been pacing in the Library, and worrying about the others...

"Gina, Come on I think I hear Aisha earlier in the Hall.  The sounds of battle have been too quiet for a while, and no one else has come around here.  Beside with these windows, This may not be a good place to hold up." states the Fae.

Bam checks the Hallway outside of the Library. She thinks she can see Aisha way up the passageway toward the bedrooms.  But it seem that just the wind..


PBH  

[Aisha deCabre]

"Bam...yeah, that sounds about right," Aisha replied to Mel with a sigh, trying to quell her frustration at the situation by scratching the back of her neck.  Her ears pinned to the back of her skull, disapproving of Ian's actions with a snarl at her lip.  "And I thought I heard gunshots too...messy and loud weapons.  At least those two are accounted for.  But there's still..."

The panthress cringed suddenly, as soon as a new disturbance seemed to rattle the walls and floor; as far as she could sense.  But she hadn't time to think on it, while Mel spoke of the webbing that was keeping her away from her comrades; away from the fighting.  At one point she thought of just burning a way through the webbing, but the ice dragon had thought of a better plan.  She quickly obeyed and stepped back, watching intently as the strands quickly crystallized in the intense cold that she could feel flowing from beyond.

As some of it shattered, the panther smiled and brought out her Dragonblade...her most trustworthy sword would do for the rest of this job.  Mindful of the cold, she stepped in.  A quick flash of metal put an end to more of the icy silk, and also to that portion of the barrier.  "Brilliant," she smiled to Mel with a slight shiver and walked past to where she could hear the others talking, replacing the blade in its sheath for the time being.  "I'm certainly all for getting everyone gathered again.  Dammit, I'm worried."

*     *     *

Meanwhile, on the same floor in another passage, Rynkura stopped alongside Cogidubnus and Sebastian as he paused to wave off the messenger butterflies of the Fae girl.  The tigress shook her head with a slight chuckle while thinking of where it was appropriate to go.  Certainly nobody wanted to risk breaking more of the library's shelves, anyway...

Then the next word uttered by the bat caught her ear, after a quick and silent search of their surroundings.  Rynkura had probably sensed something too, but it wasn't apparent until it was brought to bear.  Pain.

And then, an attack!  The healer nearly jumped away when Stygian's back erupted into a wing...a tendril of shadows, rocketing down the hallway to capture a familiar face, having leaped from her place of hiding.  Keaton's voice and face were twisted with malice and taint, which left Rynkura quite surprised and had herself quickly put up a shield of light while the bat had her tangled and thrown...the tiger could help with injuries, but first, an enemy had to be purged from a friend.  That, I will be most glad to help with, her eyes narrowed.

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog stood behind the bat, watching the strange interplay of glowing blue and shadow from behind his glasses, hardly moving at all. Both his hands rested on his sword, however, and underneath his shirt a white light seemed to project upwards, the glow penetrating just slightly through his shirt. He nodded quietly to the bat, one hand slipping into his jacket.
"Of course." he said, removing a little silver wolf's tooth. He rolled it in his hand for a moment before touching it to the pommel of his sword, a bit of smoke suddenly rolling of the endcap, and a bit of frost forming on the handguard further down.  He took a tentative step forward, his movements so smooth as to be slow. He stayed behind the bat, his eyes never leaving the Jackal.
As the Jackal struck, Cog simply stood still - he wasn't close enough yet, and he couldn't try and crush it for fear of hitting the bat in front of him. He sucked in a breath, and reached into his jacket pocket yet again, searching for a little yellow coin...

[Mel Dragonkitty]

As Aisha passed her, heading down the hall towards Ketefe, Jeremiah, and Ian, Mel reached out, placing her still frigid hand on the back of Aisha's neck. The panther let out an involuntary yelp, but Mel quickly apologized before she could do more, "Pardon, Aisha. But if the spider has returned we ca not make assumptions on who is an ally."

[Stygian]

Stygian tensed as Keaton got to her feet again, and then nearly cringed when she screamed, ears flipping back immediately. His wings swept straight out and back as he dashed for the black blade coming for him. Claws flashed, and for a moment, there was stillness.
   Keaton was thrust back into the wall to her side, another impact that stole more air from her lungs, before she could hear the hissing. The bat's hand, blackened and with claws like knives, held her scythe-tentacle in a solid grip, the darkness around it oozing and sending shivers of pain up Keaton's back. Stygian's fur was unnaturally pale, almost glowing with light in the darkness of the corridor, and his sharp-nosed face, with its gleaming black fangs and dark spheres for eyes, was pressed close to hers.
   'I already have,' he said, his voice a seething whisper. His other hand inched closer to her neck, and the jackal twitched with tension and terror as her tentacles wriggled and whipped futilely behind her.
   The next second, Stygian was jerked to the side with a muffled cry, his wings spreading and his hands clutching at his face as something white snapped out and attached itself to it and tugged him back to the side hard. Out of the shadows a many-limbed figure leaped, bounding off the walls and stringing web behind her.
   'Get them!' Sal cried out, extending her claws and pouncing toward Rynkura.

- -

Just as Jeremiah was about to reply, Ketefe thought she could see something padding across the wall behind him, something that sent shivers up her spine, almost but not perfectly blending into the wall's coloration. Small but frighteningly large for a creature of its kind, if it truly was what she thought, it silently inched closer behind the frog, before stopping and rearing up a bit, its eight legs tensing...

[Sunblink]

Pinned to the wall, Keaton found herself utterly petrified by fear once more, her eyes locked inescapably on Stygian's shadowy visage. Pure terror engraved itself once more in Keaton's frantic features, her chest rising and falling intermittently with labored, uneven breaths, heaving oxygen sinking in and out of her throat as she heaved and felt what she assumed was an incoming panic attack lurking around her subconscious. As much as she knew it wasn't the time to succumb to crying and screaming and feeling herself seized by uncontrollable fear, she found it increasingly impossible to resist such animalistic urges. Keaton's hands tensed into fists, her tentacles flailed and writhed uselessly, the immense scythe captured in Stygian's hand attempted to thrash its way free, but failed, as it was overpowered--

--and as Stygian's throat neared her neck, Keaton shut her eyes tightly, felt the color disappear from her face, and prepared herself for inevitable death.

It did not come.

Instead, Stygian was swept off to the side, his grip loosening as he was knocked away from her. Keaton's eyes snapped open as she saw Sal--dash forward, commanding her once more. Admittedly, Keaton felt undeniably adrift without any orders to follow, having lost her sense of self-reliance with her newly-invading subservience. Feeling herself emboldened by this new command, she once more transformed her tentacles into blades and threw herself at the nearest target: Cogidubnus.

"You're the one who hurt her," Keaton snarled, a malicious smile etching itself along her toothy grin. "You'll be the FIRST TO DIE, you FUCKING WASTE!"

And with that, she spun around, swinging her bladed tentacles in a whirling dervish, aiming to sever Cog's upper torso from the rest of his body. Simultaneously, she gripped Catastrophe, preparing to swing it as a secondary attack if the assault failed.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Aisha deCabre]

"Hrah!" Aisha snarled, for she wasn't too far ahead in the hallway before she felt something akin to having fresh freezer-ice poured onto her neck.  With her fur all on end, a hand instantly whipped up to cover the spot as she glanced back to Mel, hearing her quick apology.  Of course, the confirmation that it was suspected the spiders were back only made the matter more dire.

Still, the panther spared a short laugh.  "I'm not going to be able to turn my back on you guys, am I?  But trust me..."  The expression on her face turned serious, her eyes narrowing dangerously as she reached for something on her belt.  "I'm not going to fall under that bruja's influence again, and under my watch, nor will anyone else."

The others could hear Aisha's voice as they came back down the hallway, the familiar light-enchanted bracer now locked on her right wrist.  With the healing magic in its disposal, she could feel her headache instantly become masked as if vanishing...and it would hopefully prove useful in what she could feel was to come.  Now why in the world didn't I think of that before?

"Greetin's," the panther waved as soon as she was within eye-distance of the trio in the hallway, with a bit of a bloody heap of a rat among them...and something else, as well, on the wall behind Jeremiah.  She froze.  "Ahm, muchacho?  Behind you."

*     *     *

Rynkura kept the light barrier in front of her, inching back a bit as she watched the struggle between Stygian and Keaton, while the wolf quickly tried to prepare for helping to rid the succubus of the curse.  A pity, she thought, Keaton had proven a good one to have introduced herself to...nobody deserving of such a fate, at least from the tiger's perspective.

And then the tide suddenly seemed to shift...no sooner had Sebastian about had her pinned, than in a flash something flung him away from the jackal.  Her ears pinned, Rynkura caught the shape in an instant, zipping through the darkness and shouting the command "get them!" at the top of her lungs.

She had no time to look around...the spider woman was coming upon her...or would have been, if the tigress had more vigor than she looked to have.  She swerved out of her path on one foot and with the momentum swung the brightly-glowing staff with the expertise of the swordswoman that she was, straight at Sal, likely landing a quick strike.

Whether or not it had hit, she stood out of her way and held her favored talisman in front of her with a defensive stance, her feet splayed and coiled muscles bunched, ready to be utilized again.  "How rude, attacking an old healer," Rynkura drew out with an almost unimpressed tone...and then her stern features took on a more dangerous look, fangs nearly bared.  In the right hand, the staff flared.  In the left, a crafted spell formed between her claws.  Old, yes...helpless, hell no.

"How am I an enemy?  Any of the innocents?"

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog was still standing behind the bat, golden coin in hand, when Sal returned and struck at Sebastian, dragging him towards her and springing for the healer. Cog grimaced, and when Keaton suddenly rushed at -him-, scythed tentacle arcing for his midsection and the Jackal screaming for his blood.
Cog sucked in a breath, oddly loud, and narrowed his eyes as he took a step forward, towards the Jackal cubi. His movements seemed oddly slow, and his eyes, though never seeming to look right at Keaton, seemed instead to look straight through her, and without wasting a single movement he flipped the coin in his hand into the air and grabbed at his sword.
In the darkness of the hallway, the sudden flare of the sun in miniature was blinding, and those not facing away or closing their eyes would be blinded by such a sudden illumination. Keaton hissed, turning her face away, and with the scythe a mere foot away from his body Cog broke the seal on his sword.
Smoking, frosted sliver arced upwards, Cog turning his hips and catching the scythe on the edge of his sword, and guiding it up and over and letting it slide off the edge. Flowing with the block, he twisted the sword over his head and cut forward, a silver arc passing through the tentacle attached to the scythe. The severed blade flopped for a moment before laying still.
Not taking a moment to pause, Cog rushed at the Jackal, hoping that the light and the pain would stun her long enough for him to remove the spider.

[Stygian]

Rynkura's strike hit the spider squarely in the face, a loud crack signifying Sal's nose breaking. The spider didn't stop though, tumbling to her feet and merely snarling at the tigress for her comments. A strand of white shot up into the ceiling behind her as she bent her abdomen back and spun webbing quickly, and then she stretched four hands out against the tigress. Rynkura had only a moment's warning before four thick strings of web whipped out against her. The spider wove her hands around in a semicircle, tangling the things into a net that sprung at the tigress as she let them go, before hoisting herself up into the roof and scrambling against her.
   On the other end of the fight, Stygian had finally ripped the tangle of web from his face, and snarled fiercely at Keaton as she battled Cog. His wings, easily filling out the corridor from side to side, swept forward as he moved closer, arcing his back and bending his knees, standing with his feet wide apart. But before he could do anything, the room erupted into blinding light.
   In the burst of the holy flare, Stygian reflexively shut his eyes and threw his arms up before his face to shield himself, but he was still not quick enough to hinder the light from hitting his eyes for a few critical instants. He screamed at the burning sensation, a fiendish and inhuman sound, and felt it sting the rest of him like needles. His wings rippled violently before settling back in shape, drawing in as he hunched over and held his hands to his face, snarling. Sal was almost as stunned by the flare, yelping out and blinking intensely as her eyes blurred.

[Sunblink]

With her vision momentarily blinded by the unexpected flash of light, Keaton reeled back, hissing like a vampire affronted by a cross and using her unoccupied hand to shield her eyes. Judging by Stygian's scream, he had been affected in a similar way. Taking advantage of her vulnerability, Cogidubnus had moved swiftly, drawing his sword from its scabbard and swiping it through the air, severing the incoming blade from one of her tentacles with a loud, messy squelch and an even louder shriek from Keaton. The decapitated tentacle slumped, the scythe clattering to the ground. Instantly, it dissipated into nothing but nebulous, wispy energy, its once-tangible form oozing away until it was completely gone. The injured tentacle quickly withdrew into Keaton's body, leaking black ichor.

While one of her tentacles was wounded, it didn't entirely mean that the rest of Keaton's tentacles were useless. Just temporarily disabled until the other one recovered, which would take a little bit of recuperation. Controlling all of them would be difficult while her mind was still reeling from that one being disarmed. That was fine. While her tentacles were disarmed, leaving out the advantage of her overwhelming Cog with swiping dervishes of spiraling hacks and slashes, she still had Catastrophe.

A pained grimace still on her face, Keaton whipped forward the aforementioned mace, erubescent electricity and livid lightning crackling in preparation across the club's pommel. Concentrating, Keaton pinwheeled the mace around like a baton as though it were entirely weightless, fresh sparks of energy and lightning leaping and cracking like halos about its form, growing and growing in power. Keaton spun about, swinging the weapon, intending to attack Cog right in the chest. With him hopefully incapacitated, she would seize the opportunity to attack a stunned Stygian while her mistress was concerned with the old healer.

How proud she would be of her.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Aisha deCabre]

The way that the spider woman had acted to her questions--avoiding them altogether and simply concentrating her efforts on getting the tigress out of the way--added fuel to Rynkura's rising anger and gave her some insight to this creature.  She cared nothing for the innocents.  Manipulative, cruel, malicious, too confident.  Spurned the chance for understanding.

Demon.

The tiger's expression hadn't softened at all from this revelation, but her fangs bared in a snarl thought to be too vicious on an old woman's face.  The spell that was in her hand grew, a bright blue glow with the sound of humming coursing across the surface of her palm, as she kept a quick eye on the spider and the webbing that she started to spin.  She held the staff outward, bringing up the shield of light again, and let loose the spell.

Small darts of light like thorns, each fast as an arrow, flew after the creature as it leaped into the ceiling and shot wove a net of webbing in return.  Rynkura looked as if she was out of touch with the offensive magic, but she hoped with so many bolts to at least get one of the limbs and slice through the webbing...as the net flew at her, one more well-aimed shot was sent against...

And that was when the bright flash encompassed the room, momentarily blinding all of those present.  The tigress too was caught in the light, and could hear as the others were in suit.  The bat's scream, among various vocalizations of discontent from the others, was heard easily as she tried to jump away from the web's path, only for her leg to be caught in the net, teetering her off-balance just a moment...the rest of it could have been blocked by the shield.  "What in blazes?"  Rynkura snarled in frustration, trying to get her sight back, her magic still burning fierce and ready.  The spider had been caught too, she knew it...!

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel followed behind Aisha as they returned to where she had left the other three. She almost bumped into the panther as Aisha came to a sudden stop. Looking at the spot the two felines were staring at she saw the danger Jeremiah was in. She reacted with a freeze spell. It brushed Jeremiah's cheek before splashing across the wall behind him. The spider became a frozen sculpture glittering in an icy shell. "I will guess that means you are free of spiders, Jeremiah. Ketefe, please turn around so I can see your neck." Mel figured that the feline was dressed so minimally that a spider would have a hard time hiding.

[Cogidubnus]

 Rushing at Keaton, Cog hadn't expected the Jackal to be so quick in recovering, and found himself charging straight into a haymaker-style swing. Her enchanted mace was sparking, and if it hit it was likely to break a couple of his ribs. Blocking was out of the question - Cog's sword, chilled as it was, would conduct electricity very well, likely with spectacular results. His face soured.
Best to simply not be there, then. Cog canceled his momentum as much as he could, and even as he moved forward he dropped to his knees, hitting the carpet with a thunk and sliding just slightly as he leant backwards. Castastrophe swung just in front of his nose, Cog feeling the wind and getting just a little bit of a shock as it passed. He grimaced at the shock, and wasting no time he simply stood in place and leapt forward again, tacking the Jackal cubi.
It was somewhat eerie being this close to the mind-controlled Keaton. The same face that had stared at him with a modicum of compassion not a few hours ago now looked at him with the purest hatred he had ever seen, her eyes fairly glowing with a zealous fervor to exterminate all of them.
They hit the wall and rolled, Cog struggling to reach the spider on the back of Keaton's neck, even as Keaton tried to bite and claw and kick him. Cog's sword rolled out of his reach, and Keaton's teeth were rather well planted in his shoulder. He growled, and grabbing the Jackal's neck he incanted a rhyming syllable under his breath - a moment later Keaton seized, electricity arcing through her body. Cog smelled something burning, and letting go he pushed the Jackal away.
He'd put quite a few amps through her. Enough to kill the spider, perhaps, or at least disrupt it's control for a moment. Cog stumbled over to his sword and grabbed it, turning back to the Jackal.

[Sunblink]

As Catastrophe grazed Cogidubnus's nose, Keaton let out a triumphant, howling laugh, feeling insanity seize her for that instant, satisfying moment. She had not succeeded in smashing his face in, yet, but she would, she would! She would, and it would be so wonderful! In the midst of these demented mental-ramblings, Keaton barely noticed Cog launch himself at her until it was too late, her laugh severing prematurely. Keaton felt Catastrophe tumble from her grip as the lycanthrope's body barreled into hers, both canines tumbling to the ground, Cog on top of her. The mace clattered to the ground, bouncing off of its pommel and landing heavily on its spiked head, one of its barbed protrusions embedding firmly in the floor.

Keaton cursed loudly, screaming her displeasure at the top of her lungs, and wasted no time in fighting back, thrashing and kicking and trying to force her tentacles to move. In response, her midsection and spine merely rippled erratically as they attempted to obey her mental commands, sending pain sparking and stabbing along her back. When she got no response other than that, she resorted to more barbaric methods, and sunk her teeth into Cog's shoulder once he had the audacity to lean forward, tangy blood spraying into her mouth.

As satisfying as this connection was, as well as the taste of Cog's blood, Keaton's victorious sensation didn't last for long. She felt his palm press to the nape of her neck and  heard him chant a rhyming mantra under his breath, and, before she could do anything to intervene, something searing hot surged against her flesh. Unlatching her teeth from Cog's shoulder, Keaton let out a screeching scream as she felt the burning feeling lick away at her skin, almost believing that fire was eating away at her. Using that opportunity, Cog had pushed her away, leaving Keaton to roll away. She would've tried to do a backflip some distance away, but the hallway had limited space, and she simply felt too... sluggish to do so.

But it lasted for only a minute, as she forced it away and rose to her feet. Teeth and lips were stained with sanguinary red and her eyes were blazing with crimson fire, winding away in the abysmal black of her organic pupil and flickering away in the shell of her artificial eye, the glow of her fake eye-stone illuminating the slick blood subtly splattered on her lips. "That's it? That's all?!" she demanded, grinning maniacally. "That's your fucking trump card?! You really ARE pathetic!"

She took a step forward, baring teeth and fangs. If she couldn't use Catastrophe, she would rip the wolf-freak bastard limb from limb with her fangs alone. "Now, why don't you be a good boy, wolfie, and stay still and don't scream wh..." Uncontrollably, Keaton felt herself trail off, energy slipping from her reserves. Her foot stopped in the middle of its movement, almost as though every muscle in her leg had been petrified instantaneously. "Whi... while I..."

She never got to finish that. The sluggishness she had so unceremoniously ejected from her body before had returned triumphantly, smothering her remaining energy until it petered out of existence. Gripping her head, Keaton let out a pained, delirious groan, eyes, both real and fake, rolling in the back of her head...

...and collapsed, face-first, on the ground.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Boog]

Jeremiah flinched as Mel's spell whizzed past, freezing the spider behind him. He turned and saw...
Mindspider, frozen in mid-lunge. I would've had me again in an instant, and I'd have turned on the others right before. And here this thing is, almost obscene, frozen in mid-attack forever...
In one swift motion he shattered the ice sculpture, face twisted into an ugly grimace as his hand slammed into the wall it had been on. Not happening again. Not ever. His face was back to normal when he looked back at Mel and Ketefe, however. Just good old Jeremiah, nothing to see here.
"Thanks Ketefe, Mel. I owe ya," the frog's attention finally returned to Ian, "Man, he's really out huh? We should get him into one of the rooms and out of the line of fire."

[Stygian]

Still blinded by the former flash, Stygian scrambled to his feet, eyes closed in pain but his ears now tilted right forward. He might not have been able to see, but his ears were nearly as accurate as his eyes. With another growl, he swept his wings out, pitch-black tips sharpening, and advanced on the wrestling shapes. He soon regretted listening though, as another screech almost made him clasp his hands over his ears.
   'Get her down!' he snarled. 'Hold her! I can't see shit!' He staggered forward, dizzy but tense as a spring, ready to lash out aggressively at the slightest notion of retaliation from the spider or the jackal. When she spoke, he twitched, one wing rippling in its shape and almost striking out. She was that close. But he didn't get the chance to grab her before she fell, a dull thump signifying her defeat.
   'No!' The cry from behind Cogidubnus was almost unintelligible, wrenched with pain as it was. The next second the wolf was hurled against the wall as something struck him haphazardly in the shoulder and half ran, half stumbled past. Web stuck to him and anchored his arm to the wall. Sal threw herself over Keaton and against Stygian, claws fully extended and fangs bared wide, dripping poison.
   Another sweep of air and a dull thump with a muffled crack in it, and the spider flew back and hit the floor in a messy pile, arms around her and her fur cut into a bloody mess of lacerations from Rynkura's attack. Drawing his dark wings in, Stygian exhaled and steadied himself against a wall with his hand, placing his other over his face. He couldn't see it, but both the tigress and Cog were somewhat strung and struggling with web.
   'Helldamnit... Get... Get that thing off Keaton... I can't see...' he said, sighing.

- -

The very moment after Jeremiah had finished his sentence, a movement at the corner of his eye drew his attention, and something skittered across the floor. Mel felt something touch her frills, and on Ketefe's trousers...

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog struggled with the webbing for a moment before seeing Sal hit the ground next to him, unmoving, and bleeding out onto the floor. He raised an eyebrow and looked to the bat, Sebastian's wings raised high and leaking darkness. He was holding his face, hand covering his eyes. Cog sucked in a breath, cursing softly, and then sighing as he took his free hand and began to cut himself down. The web crumbled more than cut underneath his chilled blade, and fairly quickly he was able to simply rip himself from the wall. He called out to the bat.
"I'll take care of it." he said, walking over to Keaton. He looked up at the bat, concern in his eyes. "Are you going to be alright?"
He flipped the Jackal over gently, and moved her hair out of the way to expose the spider stuck to her neck. Using the sword more like a match than a knife, he froze the spider slowly, breaking off the limbs as they solidified before finally and deftly removing the creature from Keat's neck.
He stood, dropping the mindspider on the floor, and then stabbing it, then leveraging the blade to crisp it in two. He kicked the pieces away, and then swung the sword in a tight arc, trying to sluice the blood off the blade. The blood mostly hung off in icicles.
Cog scowled, and instead merely left it in his hand, bending over to pick up a coin before turning to again regard the bat.

[Boog]

Jeremiah whirled toward whatever it was he saw and took one smart step forward. His shoe landed on three of the little beasts legs with a crunch, pinning it where it was. He regarded it for a moment, considering it as though it were a piece in a museum. Really, it says a lot about the maker. Probably started with a normal spider, and changed it for the purposes of mind control. Manipulated so that others may be manipulated. The least she could do is let the spider get something out of it, he twisted his heel a little, watching the arachnid writhe silently, I mean, it's body must be under constant strain anyway. Exoskeletons work for small things, but at a certain size the thickness of skeleton required would be too much weight to move around. It would either collapse or, if the exoskeleton wasn't that thick, actually fall apart over the course of a month, tops. If it's lucky. I almost feel bad for it, it's like-
Like the spider woman, on that couch in the library, sobbing her eyes out.
He raised his foot and stomped on the spider's abdomen, finishing it off. Luckily, he got distracted before he could continue that morbid line of thought.
"Ketefe! Mel! Look out!"

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha sighed with relief, sending a congratulatory nod to Mel at her quick work on the apparent mind-spider...though seeing the familiar thing again sent a shiver up the panther's spine.  She reached to the sheath strapped to her back where the pommel of the holy blade met her cautious grip.  So they had returned, along with their master...there was going to be hell to pay.

Sighing, she listened to Jeremiah's observation and glanced down at the unconscious rat, shaking her head.  "The best thing would actually be to get him off the floor first," Aisha started, kneeling down to get a closer look...but then, she froze as something else caught her eye.  Familiar and fleeting.  Perhaps it was too much caution, but it was justified...and more so at Boog's sudden commotion, his foot finding the body of another one sneaking up on the group...

"And fast, guys," her voice had risen about a level, tired eyes with an amount of sleep still stuck in them wide open, looking around the floor for more of them and patting herself down.  And she couldn't bear it if the friends that haven't been found were...also...

"Out of here.  Now!"

*     *     *

A frustrated Rynkura had started to struggle through her webbing after her sight started to return somewhat, and after she could hear her darts finally impaling the skin of the spider woman and throw her away...leaving for the time being a very tense but agreeable moment to gather their breath.  With her ears turned behind to hear the goings on with the succubus, the tiger patiently chipped away the bonds holding her leg to the floor with the short blade she had carried...yet it still left webbing clinging to her fur.  That would be removed easily later.

Once done, the healer released a sigh and squinted, waiting for the afterimages the flash caused to completely vanish.  "Everyone is alright?" she inquired, stepping carefully over to them, noting the position of Sal's body, and Keaton's disleveled state.  "...And what to do with her?"  The word was spat almost like a curse, gesturing with her staff to the arachnid.

[Sunblink]

Somewhere far away, in the very back of Keaton's mind, she thought she heard someone talking.

The sounds were garbled, every syllable nearly muffled and muted, something eerily dissimilar to what the jackal had experienced prior to her incapacitation. Distantly, she formed a semblance of remorse and desire, wanting desperately to return to that state of enhanced senses. Twitching, Keaton's fingers curled 'round in a fist, clenching in the ground as she obscurely felt fingers touch the nape of her neck after moving her hair out of the way. Something similar to glass shattering filled her head, piercing through the foggy silence clouding her mind.

Then, much to Keaton's terror, she found her head filled with, for that split second, an agitating, horrendous voice, shrieking and shrilling away, begging for its slave to come and rescue it just before its agonizing disintegration. It was not answered. Instead, with that tiny mental voice's pleading came terrible realization, realization which manifested in the hours of mind-enslavement she had felt, including all the words and events which had gone unchallenged which had happened.

"You really are a deceitful little bitch, aren't you?"

Bloodied teeth grit together, a gravelly snarl building up in the back of her throat. The hand which had been gripping the ground curled up into a tense, pallid fist, the opposite hand bracing the ground as Keaton tried to force her body into motion. Her eyelids slowly cracked open, remnants of dying red light fading out of existence from the pit of her pupil, while her new eye automatically restarted itself, flooding its insides with suffusing gold. Rage, terrible, burning rage, swept through Keaton's veins like scathing hot fire, painting her vision a seething scarlet.

I'm NO ONE'S bitch.

Without realizing it, Keaton had forced her upper body up, bracing herself with her arms, struggling to move her aching, trembling, semi-trapped body into full momentum. Again she snarled, louder than before, a look of pure anger engraved on Keaton's black-streaked maw. It almost made the look of insanity which once held dominion over her features unintimidating in comparison, maybe even making some believe that she was still possessed. Such an assumption, however, would be dispelled with the next words Keaton spoke, each word forced out, saturated with fury.

"Who... IS THE WHORE... who DID THIS TO ME?"

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

'Yeah. I'll be fine. Just give me a while to recover...' Stygian said, pinching the top of his muzzle and rubbing his eyes. He stood straight, and slowly walked over toward the others, stopping a few steps from Keaton. His wings furled to his back, somehow seemingly decreasing in size while still taking on a much more tangible quality, just as the unearthly glow to his fur and the demonic quality of his voice had slowly faded. He couldn't see much but a blur, and his other sight was still quite jarred, but he easily understood who Rynkura was referring to. 'She's no use as hostage. Not with the old man.' He considered for a moment. 'But we shouldn't kill her. We have to secure her somehow.' That would be easier said than done though, given the spider's strength. And they still had to find the others. Fortunately, at least to Stygian restraining Sal and carrying her along wouldn't be too much of a problem.
   Keaton stirred, and for a second Stygian tensed again, before twisting his ears back at her furious voice. His eyes narrowed. 'Could you say that again, a little louder, please?' he said, scathing sarcasm in his voice, before walking over and putting his back to a wall. 'From the way you fought one could almost have thought you liked it.' His tone was only half joking, and though his eyes were unfocused his face still held a tangible look of cold disapproval as he gazed down at the jackal. There was something quite unsettling about the whole thing, in his opinion.
   There was no use in standing around though, and as Keaton looked ready to pounce and throttle the spider any second, Stygian felt the stress even more. 'We have to find the others. I think I felt something downstairs. Their rooms?' he said. If they could all gather up, then perhaps they could engage the old man and his companion before they had a chance to do something.