The Castle (IC) [M] {04}

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel had barely thrown the globe of light into the air when something burst into the middle of their grouping, knocking them about like bowling pins. Coming to a stop by falling over one of the benches broken two days she heard things flying overhead. Peeping a bit over the splintered wood she saw muzzle flashes that had to be Stygian and the purplish streak that had to be what he was aiming at. She flinched a bit from the brightness of Ryn's lightning blast against the darkness of the room, but added a lance of light, laced with ice just for good measure, to the chaos.

[Cogidubnus]

 With a sudden crack of shattering wood, Cogidubnus was thrown bodily into the benches that lined the small chapel, the pews serving as a rather unforgiving cushion to the wolf. Lying atop a pile of wood, the wolf laid still for a moment, groaning, and then sucked in a breath. He managed to force himself off the wood in time to see Mel and Rynkura's addition to the attack against the strange, purplish entity fly past his head.

Cog bared his teeth. His sword lay just a few feet to the side of him, knocked out of his hands after being thrown into the pews. A small growl on his lips, the wolf stood, and took a deep breath, gathering his feet under himself and standing.

The wolf began to murmur under his breath, and as the sky outside darkened, the wolf began to take a few steps to the side, nearer to his sword. An arc of electricity passed from hand to hand, and a slight gleam sparkled in his eye.
"Let clouds of the mourning, gray-dark day, with glistening blades, strip away..." the wolf intoned slowly, the muffled thundercrack of multiple lightning bolts echoing into the chamber.

The wolf picked up his sword, and holding it out to his side raised his free hand at the purplish, invisible apparition. Blue lightning crackled from the ground and up into the wolf, and after just a moment the wolf flourished his hand again, unleashing the stored power of a dozen bolts of lightning at the thing...

[Prof B Hunnydew]

The light needles fly into the Fae, and the glow around the Fae fades leaving the Fae in the dark music hall.  With sorrow, Bam falls to her knees, *Gina* she cries silently.  

From the comlink spell on Ketefe, Bam now hears the sounds of battle and pain... She is torn between still searching for Gina and go help the bat and her friends.  

Bambi sends out one last seeking spell with her yell "Gina, Gina Dearheart Where are you?"

 She waits a moment or two listening with her heart and mind for a direction...a place.  even just a feeling that Gina is alive...

*waiting*
PBH

[Sunblink]

It seemed as though the webs and nets of darkness which had been scarcely caging the writhing hell walled behind it vanished after Mel's orb of light had been tossed up into the air, providing a stark, whitewashed illumination which barely chased away the encroaching blackness. It should've been a beacon of hope, some form of light in the darkness, as it were, but instead it just appeared to herald the nightmarish sequence of events which proceeded in breakneck blitzkrieg afterwards.

It began with an explosion.

Everyone was thrown helter-skelter, landing in various uncomfortable positions throughout the chamber. Keaton wasn't sure where everyone else had collapsed, but she herself had been tossed like a rag doll a good distance away, right in the nest of broken and splintered pews adjacent from Cogidubnus's row. Dust and detritus mushroomed in the atramentous air surrounding Keaton's body, Catasrophe clattering off to the side and the jackal herself moaning painfully as the sounds of the ensuing conflict resonated in droning droves on the brim of her peripheral hearing. For a moment Keaton seemed to flicker in and out of unconsciousness, making her wonder, distantly, if she had hit her head in some way, but that pondering vanished when she realized this was mostly just shock.

She hadn't heard Stygian shout, but she certainly heard the gunfire, echoing like thunderclaps. Each individual boom gradually chiseled away at the thick layer of dizziness clouding her brain until it shattered entirely, simultaneous to the moment Cogidubnus had conjured up a series of lightning-lances to fire off at the apparitional opponent. With a feral growl Keaton flung herself to her feet, forcing her body into motion and grabbing up Catastrophe from its discarded position on the floor.

She didn't know if this monstrosity was invulnerable or could be exacerbated by dark magic, but she had to try something. Anything. She wasn't going to be helpless again. Snarling, Keaton swept Catastrophe through the air; crepuscular sparks of convulsing, spasming energy composed within each shred of erratic lightning trailing behind its spiked crown. Between the pikes and spikes covering Catastrophe's head red lightning began to dance, twisting and bending, writhing and warbling together as Keaton whipped Catastrophe around and around again and again over her head, gathering as much collective strength as she could from the darkness surrounding her. Not enough to consider it a shadowy attack, but necessarily, it was a dark-oriented spell.

With a loud, raucous roar, Keaton swept Catastrophe forward and an erubescent-red bolt of electricity leaped in jagged strokes from the mace, arching towards the invisible creature like a demented, fiery serpent, gliding and yet jerking through the air.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

The first of the lightning bolts cut through the air, a dazzling arc of supercharged electrons storming toward the darkness so fast that it practically hit in an instant. A roar like a chorus of pained voices, shrieking and moaning, split the chapel and tore at the adventurers' already battered senses. But the thing that had been hit only moved faster, returning the favor with a trio of crackling arcs of its own. They struck the benches beside Cog, threw them up and split the wood in half and made it catch fire. One hit Cog himself and he was torn off the floor, strips of cloth and fur shredding from him before he landed violently on one of the benches.
   'Stop! You're...!' Stygian shouted, but it was too late. Keaton unleashed a bolt of energy of her own, less dazzling and speedy but more hellish in its nature and no less powerful. It smashed into whatever it was that prowled around them and sparked off it. Only a short few seconds passed before the thing shot back another rebound of energy at the jackal, a smattering shockwave that passed along the floor and ripped it up before hurling the succubus up and away against a window. She could only scream as the glass shattered around her and she flew, bleeding and shocked, out into the night.
   Snarling violently, Stygian threw himself against their dark foe, even as it thrashed and growled, briefly illuminated by the flashes of light that slashed into it but not clearly visible as it sped and dodged in its darkness.

[Cogidubnus]

Cog's eyes widened at the bolt bounced back from the creature and towards him, biting off a quick curse before the lightning stuck him full in the chest and launched him backwards, slamming the wolf into the benches behind him. There was a sickening thud as Cog landed, his sword tumbling out of his hand and the wolf falling off the wooden pews bodily. He lay on the ground in a tumble of limbs, unmoving.

A slight groan escaped his lips. That spell by itself took a lot out of the wolf, and combining that with it being reflected back at him, and all the scrapes and scratches and loss of blood he'd suffered already...he coughed once, tasting a bit of blood, and rolled onto his back.
He looked down at himself and groaned again. His shirt had a very nice, rather large hole in it, as did his fur. A few wisps of smoke still rose from his chest, and Cog could smell the nauseating smell of burnt fur. He groaned again, shifting to his feet.

The spell left him too weak to fight, and even moreso that it had hit him, instead of it's target. He managed to find his sword, and taking a deep breath, he pushed himself back to his feet.

He nearly fell again, but by sheer force of will, kept himself upright. He began breathing slowly, and taking a few steps forward, brought his sword up in a defensive position. Arms almost failing, he concentrated on regaining his strength.
You should always finish off an opponent before turning your back on them...

[Boog]

Bal darted behind another one of the columns, barely avoiding being struck by lightning himself. He didn't have that kind of durability.
And then, for an instant, it stopped.
Now, go! Use my eyes, go hit things. Get him! Briefly, the remains of sparks settling around the thing in the darkness. Bal stepped forward once, twice, speeding up into a charge with the axehead low to the ground and far from his center of gravity.
Breakbreakbreakbreakbreak! In, feeling as though he's fighting by proxy. While the others are distracted, he can grab up more of the mind to think.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? Bal, you're going to get us all killed! Nex, always so very aware that they inhabited the body of a being, and not the most robust of them.
Go! Take things from him! Mebbe I'll get some treasures! Plic and her kleptomania. As if staring enviously at all the memories all damn day aren't enough, she always has to sink her talons into something.
Don't do this! Do not charge this creature! DO AS I SAY! WHY WONT YOU DO AS I SAY!? Cab. Funny how well they all fit what represents them. That angel, always trying to make others listen.
And the Lunacy, just laughing...
Bal pivoted on the last step, whirling around to put as much inertia as he could behind an upward stroke at this thing he still couldn't see properly. The axe swung upward, a slight snarl escaping between Jeremiah's teeth...

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel watched in horror as Cog's and Keaton's attacks were reflected back upon them tossing them painfully backwards. The wolf hit with a crack that was hopefully wood and not bone. She was more horrified when Keaton's reflected attack threw her through a window and into the stormy night. She couldn't see that her own attack had done anything at all but at least she hadn't had to eat it. With Stygian now physically assaulting the monster she didn't dare try a second major light attack. A swarm of smaller balls of light buzzed around the invisible beast.

[Stygian]

Somehow, it was bloody hard to aim for the thing. There was some sort of darkening shroud, black as the flames that Bal spouted, surrounding the entity, and flickering static stung Jeremiah's skin fiercely as the frog closed in, sweeping around his axe for what would otherwise have been a pretty devastating strike. He felt the edge of the blade nudge against something, and a shock run up his arm. And he saw the thing's eyes, six slitted points arranged almost in a circle, glaring at him. Its voice crackled and fizzed as it howled, and then something swept against the frog, knocking him back.
   You are not... relevant to this...! that voice comprised of voices sounded again, and Bal just had time to make Jeremiah dodge a sparking tear of energy that ripped against him, before another practically tripped him and threw him rolling over the floor. Begone!
   A series of blasts sounded above him, and then Stygian threw himself over Jeremiah, blackness swirling and almost crackling with energy itself. Sparks and shockwaves that caused the air to ripple flew, turning Mel's flying lights into white trails in the air, and then the bat came flying back out again, thrown headfirst against the benches.

[Sunblink]

Keaton honestly hadn't expected for her attack to have any positive effect on their invisible adversary. Frankly, after how little her dark-oriented abilities had been utilized throughout their excursion, she was surprised that it had any effect whatsoever.

Unfortunately, it wasn't something she was going to be grateful for.

The first thing she was aware of was Stygian shouting toward her, a sound muffled and garbled over the shrill shrieking of her lightning-lance, not to mention the twisted satisfaction which had inexplicably flared in the simmering cauldron of her stomach. Satisfaction which quickly vanished once realization swung back in and smashed her right in the face, sinking its serrated fangs right into her heart. She had made a horrible mistake.

The very air itself seemed to tense and convulse before Keaton felt her stomach buckle as an irresistible wave of pressure pulverized her, suckerpunching her once, twice, three times in the span of five seconds, utterly disorienting her and flinging her right across the room. For a moment everything spun; the world swung on its hinges in a swirling flurry of colors and sights and sounds and she was vaguely aware of the fact that she was bleeding from the nose, judging by the trickle of copper streaming from her nostrils. Back touched something fragile and cold before it shattered into thousands of glittering fragments, cutting through her skin and creating new wounds and breaking open old ones as she penetrated the window, Keaton's body hurling right out into the darkness.

Only when the pain kicked in and she realized she was falling did she truly scream, not involuntarily like before, but out of pure and bloodcurdling horror.

During her plummet she continued screaming, although no longer out of anger, but in fury at everything. The darkness responded to her call, the night itself seeming to leap out of its tangible barrier and crisscrossing over and over again, weaving and webbing, splotching and spidering as streak after streak of black night materialized. Keaton felt her scream taper off into a groan as her back hit something strangely elastic and she bounced slightly; disheveled head resting against the protection she had created.

Beneath her, suspended in mid-air, she had conjured an immense, corrupted, black spider-web, opaque and ichorous and hideous, a bastardized brother of the masterpieces that their arachnid artists would weave. Heaving and gasping, Keaton twitched where she laid, fists clenching and unclenching. Still, she protectively held Catatrophe in her bloodied grip, having not lost it during her fall.

Keaton was vaguely aware of the fact she was bleeding from various cuts shredding her body, but for some reason it didn't concern her. She just felt tired, feeling the telltale demanding tug of unconsciousness pull at the edges of her mind. She didn't give into it. She resisted. But all she could do was lie on her back and stare up at the dark heavens above her, listening to the sounds of the battle raging inside the castle.

And feel all the more weak.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Aisha deCabre]

It was hard for Rynkura to restrain a curse as her attack, much like the others, either missed the creature or had struck blindly...absorbing electrical potential rather than being hurt by it.  This was proven by Cogidubnus's effort as well...but energy only against this transparent threat seemed to be for naught, for even Keaton was thrown back with less than predictable results.  In the end it was sending a wave of undeniable power through the room and sending the jackal flying out of a window in a rain of glass.

No, no... the tigress snarled in frustration, trying to keep back as far as possible while Stygian had tried to confront the thing himself...sending her own blasts of light wouldn't do, after that.  She had her staff raised in defense, options running through her mind...magic, physical attacks...but in such frantic moments, the healer could find no easy solution...did this thing even have a weakness?  Nothing worked!  A few pieces of the chapel were already ablaze with this battle, at least sending more light into the ethereally haunting and hell bound room.

Just keep trying...something must do.  At least make distractions, she snarled to herself, and let loose her white-magic darts to try lacerating the thing, wherever it was, as soon as Stygian was thrown off.

Aisha meanwhile felt like a coward.  She watched her comrades...her mentor...all seemingly fighting the very air itself, while her body frantically tried to gather itself again.  Adrenaline, too much of it coursing through her veins already, bunching up her muscles in case she needed to run or to fight...and yet she could still barely move, just clutching the Dragonblade's handle with her opposite hand...aching and forced to only watch, never to help...something she feared and loathed more than anything.  What the hell...am I supposed to do?  She berated herself while shockwaves jabbed at the castle walls.  I have to...I can't...can't...

[Mel Dragonkitty]

With all the previous attacks seemingly ineffective the panicked dragon fell back to her strengths. She hurled a lance of freezing cold at the entity and hoped if nothing better it would slow it's rapid movements and leave it open for someone else's attack.

[Boog]

There was a slightly audible 'whush' as Stygian went past. Bal used the axe to scramble to his feet again for another rush.
"Not relevant?" he hissed through Jeremiah's teeth, furious. Not relevant? How dare he!? Some half-witted little twit of a construct has the balls to call ME irrelevant!?
No matter how one looked at it, the personae was at a core, fundimental level a bully. He wanted to be feared. He needed it.
"Not relevant!?" Bal sent his hijacked body in for another charge, powering forward at the last second for a thrust with the spike at the head of the axe. Aim right between the bastid's eyes...

[Stygian]

Energy seared and blazed through the air, and much of what Mel threw against the strange thing was merely vaporized. However, after a few seconds it instead began turning into something like a whirling squall, the ice freezing and breaking up in the shroud around the thing at the same time, arcs of lightning jumping between jagged, sharp crystals. The thing howled like a whirlwind, slowing but also changing direction against Mel, closing the distance frighteningly quick. She could see its eyes now, burning with storming fury. Then Jeremiah got in its way.
   The prong of the axe jerked hard when the thing's weight hit it, and it howled out. But the one who was hurt was Jeremiah. In an instant, sharp crystals of ice cut into the frog's skin, and a massive jolt of electricity sparked through him and down into the frost-covered floor. The frog jumped with the shock before the thing hurled him aside and thundered on against Mel, and was knocked to the ground, laying unmoving against the foot of a bench. The dragon could feel the static building as it got closer, and though chill trailed it there was also a glowing, searing heat that came from the sheer charge it let out into the air. Mel was an ice dragon, with some of a thunder dragon in her as well. But the thing that closed on her now was so volatile, so raging and so powerful that it intimidated her as much as any storming inferno ever could. One of those bolts through her, and she knew her flesh would sear in seconds. The thing shrugged the darts of light thrown against it by Rynkura, the things too small to shred the thunderclouds of black that still clung to it as it hurtled toward the dragoness, an approaching storm that would swallow her whole.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Having a fairly accurate knowledge of lightning from her cousins Mel knew there was no escaping the attack. For the first, and undoubtedly last, time in her life she chose to take a fight physical. With a release of magic she took her natural form. As she expanded she swept some of the few remaining intact pews aside and vaguely heard the crashing sound as her tail swept one of the stone saints from it's pedestal. She roared at the oncoming monster, traces of her icy breath weapon sparking in the dim light as static charges jumped between the fine crystals. As the monster advanced she lifted her left paw, eight inch claws evolved to tear stone apart fully extended. She chose the left with the practical thought that the charge would hit her heart a moment faster, making this a moment less painful. The dragon slashed out at the beast, a hard slap to it's side. She screamed as the electricity discharged through her, a subsonic bellow that rattled the stones of the castle to the foundations. Twitching, she fell, the sound of nearly a ton of dragon hitting the floor masking the sound she hoped to hear, the rapid deceleration of the monster against the chapel wall. The last thought to flutter from her brain was that she hoped she had done some damage to the guardian. It would be embarrassing as anything if her grandmother investigated this and found out she'd screwed it up. The weakling, ineffectual to the last.  Then even regret fled, leaving just random electric shudders, flashes of blue and pink pearlesence running back and forth over the otherwise still white form.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bam is dishearted that she can locate Gina ny sound or magic, and after a few moments of listening, she knows that Gina is not here.  Maybe, once the fae is closer to the Helgate, she will feel the girl.

"Okay, Time to find the others, maybe Gina is there, and maybe she is a hortage" 

Bambi actives her comlink with Ketefe.  It brighter in her hair, as Bambi creates another buterfly in front of herself.  A bell tone is heard where Ketefe is as her butterfly from her hair enlarges as it flys a ways up the hallway.

PBH

[Stygian]

Mel's full weight slammed heavily into the floor, making it shudder. And the dragon lay still. The beast she had fought to fend off though, did not, despite its hard impact with the chapel wall. Slowly moving forward, it hovered for a second, seeking a new target. It found one in Aisha and Gareeku.
   Hissing and sparking like a broken power line, the beast drew closer to the wolf and panthress. Rynkura and Gareeku were the only fighters left standing. Aisha clearly wouldn't be of any help. She was wobbling at the knees and couldn't even hold her weapon with her favored hand. And seeing the terrible apparition closing with them, flickering bolts reflecting off and hinting at the humanoid shape amid the deathly shadows that surrounded it, she wasn't even sure she could keep conscious. The three unfortunates left felt their skin beginning to sting as the thing came closer, short discharges of lightning coruscating from it and off the floor and columns to its side, intensifying as the thing readied for its final assault. It seemed they were done for.
   Suddenly, a dark shape lunged out of the shadows and tackled the fiend, smashing it violently into the wall yet again. The monster shrieked in its many voices again, and immediately began discharging a storm of lightning around it, crackling and ripping. Another voice was added to the screaming.
   'KILL IT! KILL THE MOTHERFUCKING THING! NOW!' Stygian roared, holding the thrashing thing in his grip while streams of lightning ripped and lashed through him. He was pulling the shadows that had hidden the thing back somehow, exposing its true form. It was muscular and humanoid, but seemed almost skeletal somehow, with a split lower jaw and six glowing, terrible eyes on the front of its skull-like face. Its long, spindly, talon-like fingers were clawing the bat's skin as it tore and struggled to get out of his grip.

[Gareeku]

Throughout the whole ordeal, Gareeku had been trying to find some way of harming the thing that they were now up against. He had looked on with gritted teeth as Mel, Keaton and Cogi had all suffered at the hands of this disgusting entity.

Now, however, that thing was caught, held in place thanks to Stygian, and Gareeku was going to make sure that this thing would be vanquished. Holding his brightly glowing katana above his head, the wolf then brought it down in a powerful slash that would cleave right through the entity, from it's shoulder, through where it's heart would be and out the other side at it's waist.

[Stygian]

The wolf's slash was heavy with tiredness, but also with strength, and the cut ripped through the creature's body, deep into its torso. It screamed and flailed, howling in that terrible, demonic voice, as a spray of black blood and incandescent particles splashed out and burned the wolf's blade and also his face and arms. Electricity surged everywhere, the horrid creature seeming to burn itself up like a broken fuse as it died.
   When at last the lightning died, the room seemed terribly, impossibly dark all of a sudden. The bony, skeletal figure of what was left of the demon was laying to the side, and Stygian lay sprawled on the floor a step away from it. His near-white fur was burned into graying and yellowing shades, black at the tips and edges, and his eyes were closed.

[Aisha deCabre]

For the Healer, it was all just hard to watch.  The creature trailing shadows of purple light was growing stronger in power and menace for each attack that it was given...and tearing back into the chapel with enough force to slightly rip the walls and the floor.  Everyone that had gone against it were down for the count...even Mel, now an impressive ice dragon, had her bulk sprawled on the chapel's floors and among the pews.  Rynkura had even tried to call up some stronger light magic attacks...all failing.

All except for herself, Gareeku, and Aisha...and like a trained carnivore, the fully-sighted humanoid beast now sensed this and was bearing down upon them...literally crackling and sizzling with electricity all over its form.  The panthress had the barrier for protection...but with the stress and blood loss of her previous wounds making her weaker and weaker, still it felt like the discharges were close enough to threaten to stop her heart.  Rynkura raised her staff with a dangerous grimace on her face and white magic glowing on her palms...she wouldn't let the beast anywhere near Aisha...nor try to let it harm anyone else.

The wolf seemed to have the same mentality.  For in an instant, Stygian the beast held, and the tigress caught the flash of a bright, glowing blade...and in a flash of steel, blood, and lightning, Rynkura only shut her eyes for a moment.  She opened them to the corpse, and the blood-stained individual who had vanquished it.  Having been in the vicinity of the slaying, her opalescent fur and light blue robe were also partially covered in deep red.

"Brilliant, sir Manoko," she said with a smile, after a hushed breath as the room had fallen dark again...nearly impossibly dark.  But the soft glow of Rynkura's staff, and the faint light emitted from Gareeku's blade helped cut through it.  Just like Mel had done, the tigress cautiously constructed an orb of light and thrust it upward, just enough to see what the damage was like.

And it wasn't at all good.  "Ohh...this battle is going to last an eternity," the tiger murmured.  There were many injured to be counted...but she looked for those who were up.  "I want someone to try and awaken Sebastian...Keaton needs to return...and I can't do this healing alone.  Permit me, and the rest of you try your best to halt your bleeding."  Rynkura approached the dragon, looking her large frame over before pressing her hand against her neck.  "Good, you're alive..." she sighed, and began to send a good deal of magic through her system...a good deal of energy, but with any luck, the dragon would be awake in a moment.  At least she was familiar with the dragon's workings, having healed her once before.  Her staff was left on one of the pews once again.  She figured she could trust anyone to touch it if they wanted a quick strength boost.

Aisha, meanwhile, looked up and saw the end of the battle, still relieved of Gareeku's presence.  She wasn't much help standing around...the light had given her a good view of the injured...but she had but little strength to walk, let alone help them.  Her eyes were glazed, and so she sat down on the floor, watching.  "Quiero dormir... (I want to sleep...)" she sighed, having replaced the Dragonblade on her right hip, instead of her left, as usual.  She had practiced being ambidextrous in a time like that, but she had never figured it would actually happen.  Damn it all...

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Amazingly the first thing Mel noticed was that her nose was wet. It was only when she tried to figure out why water was splashing on her nose that she realized her chest hurt like she'd been kicked, several hundred times. She moaned and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a smashed out stained glass window. Windblown rain was what was hitting her face. Then she remembered how the window had been broken. "Keaton?"

She tried to push herself up onto her legs, only to have searing pain shoot up the left one, causing her to collapse again. She cursed, quite thoroughly in her native tongue as she remembered the fight and realized that her arm was probably burned internally and was going to be horrid to heal. Then she saw the tiger beside her. "Apologies, Madame. What have I missed?"

She tried to return to a more being-friendly size and found that, distracted by the pain in her chest and arm and her brain feeling fuzzy and disconnected, magic was slower and harder, she really had to concentrate before she found herself sitting on the floor, looking up and Rynkura.

[Stygian]

A low groan and the clinks and clattering of little pieces of stone signified Stygian waking up from his blackout. Shaking, the bat scraped himself up from the floor and onto his knees, taking as good a look around as he could before stopping. He sat still for a good while, closing his eyes and simply breathing slowly and steadily. Then he looked up at the broken window.
   The bat's eyes widened. 'Oh, shit!' he exclaimed. In an instant, shadows gathered, and a swirling, flaky squall of darkness gathered at his back, taking shape as a pair of utterly black wings that spread their huge span and swept up a cloud of dust. Defying the pain he felt, Stygian pushed himself up and with a beat of his wings catapulted himself through the broken window, out into the night.
   It would have been hard for most others, even though one could tell from broken branches on the surrounding trees and scraped up dirt further down, where on the nearly vertical drop Keaton had landed. The darkness and rain obscured most sight completely. But fortunately Stygian was not like most others. Plummeting down and using his large wings like a parachute, he broke the downward fall meters off the ground and then braced close to the steep wall, feeling the loose and wet, stony ground with his feet. Finding a grip, he bent down and slipped his hands under the jackal's bleeding body, careful as if she were made of porcelain. He lifted her slowly, gingerly and turned, bending his head back to look upward, and then threw himself up again, making sure to cradle her head to keep any fractures or concussions at bay.
   Getting back in through the ruined window was more of a problem with Keaton in his arms than getting out, but once he got inside, just cutting his ankle on the splintered glass, Stygian dropped to the floor and put her down as carefully as he had picked her up.

[Cogidubnus]

 With a soft thump, Cog sat down on the bench behind him, immediately falling forwards on his elbows as he breathed heavily. He simply held his sword in his left hand, too tired to sheath the naked blade, and took in the carnage. Almost everyone except Rynkura had taken serious damage. Even Mel, who he thought almost invincible as a dragon, seemed to have taken quite a beating.
They were broken and bleeding. And that had just been a servant.

Cog made a face, a charm of a small amethyst-laden attached to a chain around his wrist glowing softly in the darkness. He felt cool, sweet strength flow up from it - not nearly enough, but enough to ease his breathing and start his skin to scabbing. Even so, the others needed the help more than he did.

Cog sat and let the little cross do it's work, keeping his ears perked.

[Sunblink]

When Stygian had reached her, upon first glance, Keaton looked quite dead. Resting on the spider web in a broken, battered heap, she was covered in splatters and stains of blood, even more red oozing from the gashes and cuts lacerating her shredded, pallid skin. Black-tarnished, yellow fur was mottled and marred with copper, her hair disheveled and spilling like a ragged halo around her head. Only a half-dead spark remained active in the core of Keaton's eye-stone, the solitary signal of her volatile survival. Occasionally her body twitched and spasmed, body wracking in pain as this involuntarily triggered an unconscious movement from the arm holding Catastrophe, which was bent and still bleeding anew from those cuts previously inflicted during the demonic throng. Keaton's face was equally splattered with blood, having endured two more cuts to her face, one bisecting the first one on her gash, the other dangerously close above her organic eye.

One chocolatey iris glazed over with pain fixed on the incoming silhouette of Stygian, Keaton herself barely reacting aside from a loud groan. Her brain seemed to skip like a broken record, intermittently blanking out and restarting as she teetered in and out of unconsciousness. At one moment Stygian seemed to be approaching her, at the next he was right beside her, then she was gathered in his arms carefully so to not disturb her injuries and cradled as he glided back up to the window. Keaton struggled to say something, but it only came out as a slur, voice garbled and choked. Instead, all that registered was a profanity, especially as she was rested on the ground.

Quietly, she turned her head to face the others. Mel was gradually returning to her normal size, something rather surreal to Keaton, and everyone else was blurred beyond recognition, distinguishable only by color. Suddenly becoming self-conscious of how weak and moribund she appeared, Keaton reached up with her unhurt, yet blood-sticky hand and buried her face in it, hissing and moaning unintelligibly through her teeth. "G... gaaaahhhk..." With slightly wet eyes she looked up at them through her fingers, then smiled slightly, feeling too delirious to be ashamed. "H-Hey... guys...

"Y'... you all look like shit," she stated shakily, but then choked with slightly insane laughter. At this point the delusion was really getting to her. "I'm no... not much better, though," she forced a grin, then rested her head against the floor, her organic eye still hazy. It hurt so bad, but she was just tired at this point. Sleep. Needed to sleep. Then everything would be okay. "Sorry I fucked things up again... just gonna sl... sleep for a moment if the thing's gone..."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[lucas marcone]

Ketefe led Ian to the chapel without incident. Ian walked in and saw his friends for the first time in a while. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you all, but man do you all look like hell." Funny he said that as his gapeing wound was clearly visible below the tuniqute.


OOC: If I'm takeing too much liberty with Ketefe let me know I'll edit.

[Boog]

Jeremiah opened his eyes and the first thing he thought was, Oh thank gods, they're my eyes again.
The second one was, Oh thank gods, I'm still alive!
The third was simply the realization that just about everything hurt. He'd looked away for only a second, when Bal was recuperating from that first charge, and then something had happened...
Everyone was regrouping, arriving, making sure everyone they cared about was still intact. Ian, Ketefe... Glad they're alright. Wonder where Bam is...
... Wait, we look like hell? He feels the need to say this after we've all been-? For some reason this was tremendously amusing for the battered frog at the time, and the few small laughs he could manage hurt, but he'd really needed it. He tried to make a joke about how it would fit, since they'd been chewing demons up and spitting them out, and everyone knows you are what you eat. However, all that came out was, "H-hell? HAH- Ow," he put a webbed hand to his side and grimaced, "Owwww, ow ow ow ow ow. Ow." He sucked in air through his teeth and tilted his hat out of his eyes, noting that his thump against the floor had left him with a gash that he assumed looked awful. "Ow."

[Aisha deCabre]

Rynkura had let her magic wane as soon as she could feel Mel awakening.  The tigress tried to be careful with her energy...on a victim of electric shock, at that size, it would have been daunting...but the situation was proving to be somewhat desperate.  Though the healing had at last proven quick.  She backed away for a moment as the dragon tried to stand, and then watched as she shrunk back to the size that she had been before.  "Easy, don't overexert yourself," the healer softly chided.

She sighed quietly.  At least Mel was alive, though she would be needing a moment's rest.  Rynkura smiled and offered a hand to help the dragon on her feet.  "You haven't missed much.  Sir Manoko dispatched of the demon with the help of Sebastian..."

That was when she was interrupted as said bat stood up with an exclamation and shot out of the shattered window, where Keaton had been thrown.  More relief, at least, that the group would be gathered.  She took a breath and continued.  "It's just a good thing your heart hadn't given out.  The rest of us have come out badly from this fight in some way or another."

It was certainly no exaggeration, as soon as the bat returned with Keaton in his grip.  As he gently set her on the floor, she could see that the succubus was alive, but quite battered...as it was the case with the others.  But the new voices that belonged to Ian and Ketefe were a relief.  She cast a nod of greeting at the two.  "That makes most of us together again..." the tigress muttered and turned back to Mel.  "If you wish, you can take a moment and rest, and then help me with some of the healing that we must do, and..."

That was when she spotted a familiar relic on Ketefe's wrist.  It was the healing bracer that she had given to Aisha some time ago.  "Well, that's where it was..." she said thoughtfully, tilting her head at the cat.  "We may be in need of that, if you are done with it.  Either Aisha or myself can unlock it for you," the tigress informed before turning around and looking to see who was the most hurt.  Having caught that Keaton felt exhausted enough to fall asleep, the tigress decided to try seeing to her first.  She approached the jackal with a softly glowing palm.  "If I may," she added politely, and started to seal her bleeding.

Watching the events unfold before her, Aisha felt like her eyes were getting heavier as her body tried to calm itself down after the fiasco.  Falling asleep again didn't seem nearly as bad an idea for herself either...and that's what she did, slumping lightly against the wall with a long sigh taken as she clutched the cloak around herself.  In a chapel of Hell, surrounded by her companions...the panthress could do nothing more but put her trust in them...especially to her closest, Gareeku, the wolf looking as a blur of white in her vision before she closed her eyes.

[Gareeku]

Breathing heavily as he watched the creature disappear, having felt the satisfying feeling of feeling his blad cut through it's "flesh", Gareeku chose not to resheathe his sword as the group was plunged into darkness. Nodding his head in acknowledgment as he was mentioned, the wolf then recharged himself somewhat thanks to Rynkura's staff. The creature's blood had created burns on his white fur and what remained on his top, which by now was in utter tatters. Feeling that these remaining pieces of fabric would only serve to get in his way should they encounter yet another battle, the wolf removed them, completely exposing the rest of his torso.

It was then that, turning around, Gareeku saw Aisha. Immediately all concern for his own well-being disappeared.
"Aisha..." he murmured, not taking her eyes off of her as she seemed to fall asleep. She was so vulnerable; a far cry from the strong warrior he had always known and, in many respects, admired. Walking over to her, the wolf gently picked her up, not wanting to disturb her as he cradled her in his arms. Sitting down on a nearby chair, he cradled her protectively. He had sworn that he would see that no harm would come to her, and, quite appropriately considering the hellish environment they were in, he would be damned before he would break that promise.

[Stygian]

'Don't talk,' Stygian said, taking Keaton's hand and gently lowering it. His face was pained as he looked up to Rynkura. 'Heal her,' he said. 'As far as you can without expending yourself. Mel has to recover as well. And don't we have any potions?' He wouldn't mention that he himself was in dreadful pain. Her healing would probably not help, and he was gaining strength through the darkness with each passing second.
   A dark, cruel laugh sounded throughout the chapel.
   'I was a bit disappointed that you were all still alive, but it seems I have something to rejoice for nevertheless,' Asmodai's rasping voice leered at them from the dark. 'Is the little cubi precious to you, Sebastian? And I who thought you were callous. If anything I had expected you would care more for the DeCabre bastard.'
   Stygian glared up and out into the dark. 'I will kill you, old man. Save your jabs, because they are for naught,' he growled. Only silence greeted him.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

From Ketefe's hair, a green glowingbutterfly flys into the chapel.   The glow turns blue and expands to Being size and shape.   It turns to Bambi with a white flash.  

Bambi has a batch of cookies on a tray.. "Hey You guys start this party without me.  But I brought the Cookies.  These are really healthy cookies, so everyone should have one. ", says the Fae.  "Nothing is like these cookies for the Energy you need or help you with your hurts and scraps."

"And No cookies for you, You old Bat" says Bambi


PBH