PITCH BLACK〔M〕「Hoef & Hannelorian」

[Dire Hoef]

Sing Sing Sing / Benny Goodman

---

Hachi listened to her breakdown, her plan. He understood every step, and was already in the process of calling forth the spell to put this plan into action. And when she swung the door wide to reveal the hallway, Hachi whipped his hand out to manifest Nora's form.

There, in the middle of hallway, stood the facsimile of Nora. But, matching in lock-step, was the real Nora to exert her psychic power, to put life into this faux mirage of herself. And, on que, like the swinging brass of a big band, came the resounding roar of wind as the entirety of the hallway was swept up in a typhoon.

What made this situation even more hectic was the outbounding air that sheared its way into the kitchen, kicking up anything that wasn't nailed down. But, Hachiro remained sturdy as pots and pans came zipping past his head. He held the image of Nora, and strained his eyes to peer into whirlwind. But, he was still unable to get a good look at it, but its figure had taken up the doorway.

However Hachiro didn't want it to escape, and so he decided to do something even more foolhardy.

He used his other hand to call forth a different spell that manifested itself as five trendrils of translucent energy. These tendrils whipped around searching for their target before shooting out to wrap themselves around the creature on its supposed limbs. He felt the creature tug and pull at him, but then a sudden force hoisted him up into the air and then slammed him down into floor with a thud.

He gasped, and coughed a little at the sudden use of telekinesis. But before he could have any time to recuperate, the same force grabbed him again and repeated the same attack. This time, there was far more force behind it, a couple fractures happened as a result. "Gah! Fuck! Now would be a good time to throw the blood!!!" He then put his willpower into maintaining focus on both spells. Admittedly, he was beginning to hate telekinesis..

[Hannelorian]

"Those are my tricks." Nora braced herself, forcing her weight downward as the shears of wind ripped through the kitchen. Nora quickly gave up the facade, and let her own energy flee from the image, and quickly using her left hand she lifted Hachi up from the floor and pulled him back toward her as gently as she could, but she did not release her hold. This was her own way of combatting the creature's ability, it would have to fight her if it wanted to throw Hachi around a second time. With her other hand the container of blood was lifted and she sent it flying toward the target.

Nora had successfully made contact, hearing something of a roar as the lid popped off and doused the creature in the animal blood, and with the image gone, it fled quickly down the hall as the wind died down and Nora allowed her mental hold over Hachi to dissipate and move of his own free will again. She admitted she felt bad about holding him there, much as the giantess had, but she was only trying to protect him.

"Are you alright?" Nora asked as she moved to the doors, stepping in the hallway noting indeed there was now a trail of blood, in addition to a good amount of blood on the walls. "Well, that did something... and now we know it's definitely a psionic bastard." Nora sighed again and turned to look back at Hachi. "I can definitely block it... but it would be on you to kill it... I can't do both." The energy it would require to put up roadblocks for the creature would be painful and immense.

"It's a slippery bastard, isn't it? But we know it had a substantial physical form, and that means we can slit its throat." Nora smirked softly and gave a brief thumbs up. She was oddly optimistic, every thing they did gave them more evidence, more information. And in turn it would give them more tools to put in their box as they began their journey into the unknown.

[Dire Hoef]

He held his side as he stood to his feet, and looked at what the blood had demarcated. He then turned to Nora and shared that smirk, "Other than the wind getting knocked out of me, I'm still standing." He wiped some dirt off of his shirt, and fixed himself up.

"Yeah, it certainly marked it," he glanced at the blood splatters along the walls after having stepped into the hallway behind her, "And all the better, leave it to me. I have just the thing for that psionic bastard." And Nora had a point about its form. It was physical, and could bleed. Which meant that it can be killed. This gave Hachi the motivation to really bring forth a spell that he heard about only in books. "This next spell is rather...destructive.. I haven't casted it before, and I don't know if it'll backfire when I do cast it.. However, considering what it uses to get us, I think the dangers here outweigh the risks."

He gandered down the hall, and saw that the creature had taken a left turn. "Looks like it went downstairs, time for us to go hunting." He had a look of unfettered bloodlust, and was prepared to take the fight straight to this thing.

[Hannelorian]

"Well I certainly support your endeavor to try something new, I only ask that you be careful. It would be rather a shame if lost one another now." Nora smirked as she began to follow the trail of blood that took them down the hall, to the left and down a set of stairs. The trick here was being to get enough time in front of the creature, or behind it to subdue it's psionic assault before it could bring on the wind storm. "It's not much further..." Nora now had dedicated her mind to the hunt. With each passing moment she sent out a little flare, a little wave of energy of sorts. And she waited for it to hit a target, and send a report back. Like some kind of radar, or perhaps even sonar. Those little pings, tiny calls into the void, just waiting for a response.

It would not take long for Nora to get wait she was waiting for. "There you are... sneaky." Nora smiled softly and made her way down the hall for the first time almost unguarded, though moving ahead of Hachi. This time because she would have to subdue and give him time to prepare his work, his new spell. "It's in a room... it's... like... a..." Nora seemed to spend a moment grasping for the right word. "A drawing room? That's what those things are called." And indeed the trail led them carefully to a set of heavy double doors.

"Get ready sunshine." Nora smirked, she was something in a phase of teasing Hachi, but also attempting to find a pet name for him that sat right with her. Sunshine was not it, but it was for the moment kind of amusing. Nora clapped her hands together, and a burst of energy was cast forth from her. It cascaded widely around them and would move to envelope the room beyond the doors. A bit of a distraction, the creature hopefully would struggle to identify the direction of the source, and when she ripped her hands apart the doors were flung wide open and Nora pushed herself inside.

It took a matter of seconds for Nora to spot the thing, brining her hands together, fingertips curling inward into fists, a look of anger now settling on her face, she gripped with all of her psychic might, placing a hold over the creature and for the first time, stopping it from moving too much. That was where the struggle for control began and Nora was not afraid to say it was painful, or difficult. It railed against her, fighting her grip tooth and nail. But Nora had to push through her pain and quiet her mind, now reaching out to the creature, attempting to manifest every conflicting thought she could and pushing it into the creature. Every bit of cross wires and confusion, a distinct lack of a direction, or understanding. The battle was now taking places on two fronts.

[Dire Hoef]

Hachi followed in behind Nora as she tracked the trail of blood to a drawing room down on the first floor. He only nodded to her worries, for he was internally worried of the results. But, he didn't really have long to ponder the what-ifs as they came up on the heavy double doors. The mind-beast was beyond this threshold, and he had very little prep time.

So Hachiro got down on one knee, and called out a series of incantations. These incantations manifested as sparks of lightning, but eventually those sparks formed rings that floated around him. These rings aligned themselves down his whole body, and air began to rush into his person. Just as Nora called him Sunshine, which didn't really land the way she'd hoped, those arcs of lightning became tubes of iridescent fire that dripped like lava. All Hachi could manage was a confused look at "Sunshine," but didn't really comment on it as the monster took center stage.

Nora had pushed inside and had began her mental assault. This gave Hachi the moment to roll into his position inside the room. He saw how the psionic feedback from their mental bout caused ripples in the fabric of space. Their power mesmerized him for a brief second, but then was quickly reminded of the growing intensity of this spell he had going. He remembered any deviation from this point forward was death, and he was going to avoid that at all cost.

Hachiro, now focused on casting, had the fiery energy flow into a single point that was at the edge of his index finger. He had formed that hand into a gun and it was aimed directly at the beast. He lined up his shot, and took a deep breath before shouting at the top of his lungs for Nora to, "GET DOWN!!!"

In that instant, all the energy that had pooled into that point was discharged as a sphere of raging fire that was the size of three basketballs. The sphere blasted through whatever barrier the creature hastily put up and slammed into its body with a thump before a boom came after. The entire room and any adjorning halls became a scorched, raging, inferno.

Hachi, covered in soot and ash, was on his back a few dozen feet from the room on a patch of lawn outside. It appeared he got ejected from the room through a massive hole int the side of this building. He stared up at the dark sky for a brief moment as felt the world spin, and grow heavy. He then groggily sat up to stare at the carnage he had wrought, barely able to stand on his feet. "Did...Did that do it?" He pondered aloud as Nora's safety crept onto his number one list of worries.

[Hannelorian]

Nora was like a statue, she remained firm, her feet pressing with all of her might into the ground, the weight of her own power could be crushing. She remained locked with the entity, the two of them holding one another hostage in what felt like an eternal struggle for mere survival. Her mental assault was strong and sustained, Nora would ignore the rising levels of pain in her head, and indeed throughout her body. It would have been impossible to break her concentration, in fact when the shout, the command to get down did arrive, Nora hadn't heard it, hadn't processed it, not fully.

It was the explosion itself that finally did it, Nora's assault stopped like someone had just flipped a light switch into the off position, and the energy of the explosion itself sent her flying backward quite a distance. The heat of the explosion, of the raging fire, of the pure energy itself was intense. Nora could feel a radiating pain as she came to from a momentary bout of unconsciousness.

Her right arm had been severely burned, her bones ached with the pain that she knew meant some had broken, but even so, she forced herself upward from the rubble and looked around. There was now a hole in the side of the building, a clear path to the outside. Nora had to, for the moment at least, ignore the pain. Her mind was scanning, searching, over and over again, looking for the creature. But she could not feel it, it was no longer here, only the residual energy, it had been killed. Thank God for that.

With a few swift movements of her wrist, Nora trigged the fire suppression system. Why hadn't it gone off in the first place? Nora grumbled as she now searched for Hachi. She could still feel him in her mind, she knew he was alright, but where was he? Taking a few staggered steps toward the gaping hole, Nora exited and looked around until she finally saw him and made her way to him. Nora fell to her knees, breathing heavily. "You did it... we did it."

[Dire Hoef]

As Nora fell to her knees, so did he. He was fully absorbed in the fleeting feeling of victory that he hadn't noticed the growing sense of heaviness that weighed on him. He did not care for the dangers of the outside. All that was on his mind, was the fact that Nora was safe and the monster was dead. He smirked and meekly said, "Thank God for that..."

That spell in all of its splendor took everything he had to ensure it went off. And for this he paid with his stamina. The weight of not only the infinite fog, but the spells arcanic feedback was enough to strain Hachi to the point of unconsciousness. Those last four words were all that could be said, all that could be mustered, before exhaustion took hold.

And with the monster's terror over, an uneasy peace arrived to the mansion grounds. But a looming presence slowly encroached upon the estate. Something rather massive that had melted into the background of this facility. The lights from these series of buildings weren't enough to fully illuminate it, but it was illuminated enough to be standing just out of view. Nothing was heard.

From what was seen, it appeared to be bipedal. The light had illuminated a hip, leg, and lower torso. Its surface appeared to glisten in the ambient light, and bristled every-so-often.

[Hannelorian]

Nora felt the same wave of exhaustion rush over her, consuming her like a riptide, pulling her out into the ocean. But there was no time for that. By the looks of it Hachi was equally if not more exhausted, and Nora had to tend to her own wounds. Looking back up at the mansion, the illumination of the fire slowly died down as the suppression systems went to work. Nora wondered for a moment if everyone inside was fine, and had to recognize that now whatever was outside had a much path to gaining entry. But that was a problem for later. The couple needed to rest before they could contemplate setting out.

Nora pushed herself off the ground, hands thrusting down into the dirt to give her the necessary boost, an assist in momentum to force her upright. Turning her palms to face the ground, with arms before her, she used the last of her energy to raise Hachi into the air, though she made no attempt to limit his mobility, not this time. She would carry him in and care for him first. But Nora had looked back, and felt something was different, something was off. It would take her eyes a moment to focus on a hazy figure in the distance, towering, but she couldn't quite take stock of the entire picture. But there was no sound, just the odd silence of the outdoors.

Was she seeing things? Was her mind so exhausted, the pain so severe that she could now be hallucinating? It was possible, but her mind could no longer reach out, she was too tired. And so, Nora did perhaps an unwise thing and simply turned away, with staggered steps she made her way back toward the mansion, carrying Hachi with her mind in front of her, and slowly she navigated her way back to what was his room and set him on the bed.

Without so much as a question, Nora appeared with a bowl of water and a clean towel, and slowly but surely she would wipe his face clean, his hands, if there were any wounds she could treat she did so. And then there was nothing, unconsciousness had taken hold and Nora found herself curled up on the bed beside Hachi. Her arm burned, her head bounding, her body riddled with dirt and grime. Sleep was all that she could need or want. That and to know Hachi would be okay.

[Dire Hoef]

"You..."

Twas faint. Barely audible to the human ear. Hachi's shifting dreams had the foundation of its calling. Something, beyond the veil of mental imagery, was..a being.. A creature that his absent mind can't quite fathom. Was he sure that he heard it? Or was it another one of the audible nightmares he was being tormented with in his sleep? He couldn't tell.

"You."

Now it was heard. It hadn't dawned on him yet, but his dreams were being tainted. Around him, at this moment, the visage of his childhood home twisted and bristled. Eyes, of which were solid black with only a white dot as its pupil, appeared all over the house. This being pierced the manifold of his mind, tearing it open with a ultraviolence. What remained was an empty void, stranded over a unseen body of water.

Hachiro frantically looked around, unsure of what was happening.

A bipedal humanoid, gaunt in stature, stood tall against the void. Its outline was slim at the waist and legs, but wide at the shoulder. The outline was clearly contrasted against the infinite darkness, allowing Hachi to see it clearly. However what chilled his very soul was its own two eyes opening, revealing several pupils clustered inside of them.

It spoke again, this time its voice reveberated like a subwoofer.

"YOU"

This, shook Hachi awake. He was sweating a little, hyperventilating softly. He looked around found that he was in the same room they slept in. And he also found Nora tucked into him, still asleep. He smiled as her warmth kept his nerves calm. He did recognize that Nora had tended to his injuries, but his body still ached from the large amount of stress they were put under. So he didn't really move, only shifting slightly due to some discomfort.

As he laid there, his mind started to pace.

He wanted to understand his dreams, but they were so spotty.

He was bouncing from scene to scene, never hanging around enough to get engrossed in whatever was happening at that moment. Plus, that thing, invaded his dreams just to yell a word at him. It all seemed..so nonsensical to him, but considering how these creatures have evolved, it's not too far out of the realm of possibility. However, an unfortunate side affect of waking up from a nightmare is that he can't sleep.. At least, not now.. He wasn't sure if that thing was still skulking about in his mindscape.

So he proceeded to lay there, quietly being enraptured by Nora's presence.

[Hannelorian]

In the corners of her dreams Nora could hear it. Although it was not immediately recognizable. There were echoes, small echoes clanging, bouncing from one wall to another. Over and over again. Each time getting just a little louder. Almost like someone was whispering, then speaking, and then yelling. But the words could not be made out. They were entirely unknown to her. Nora had been in her lab, standing over the shoulder of one of her colleagues, pointing at something on the monitor before them. Results of some sort, but the details seemed unimportant.

It was only when the echoing began that Nora appeared to lose focus, her eyes darting around the rather sterile space, and then her head moving to see if she could pinpoint the source. It seemed improbable, unusual. Something about it was all very wrong, disconcerting, upsetting, threatening almost. Nora raised her hand to her head, pressing against her temple. Aching. A throbbing pain that seemed to surge with each echo.

This was the connection she maintained with Hachi, even when they were both unconscious, the link never let go, never broke. And then there was silence. The echoing had stopped, the pain had seemed to dull, Nora's eyes could once more focus on her own surroundings. And then just like that, the eerie silence had woken her up. Stirred her back into the world with something of a start.

The pain in her head had dulled slightly, her body still ached and her burn seared, but all of that could be pushed aside. Hachi was there, the two were wrapped in one another. How long had it been? "Hachi..." Nora said, just loud enough to be heard. And she understood it must have been a dream, his dream... breaking into hers. "What woke you up?"