PITCH BLACK〔M〕「Hoef & Hannelorian」

[Dire Hoef]

Sing Sing Sing / Benny Goodman

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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."