Beaks
Wacky Woohoo Pizza Sadness Man
YOU THOUGHT THIS WOULD STOP ME?!
Rage. Nowhere. Everywhere. Too many places at once, too many to count, let alone stop. The hissing companion was gone. No more need for malicious whispers, the creature was free by the hand of the former Captain herself.
YOU WANT TO LET ME LOOSE JUST TO SHUT ME AWAY AGAIN?!
A fist slammed into her right ribs like the blow of a hammer, cracking bone on contact and sending the woman skidding across the jagged earth like a stone being skipped upon a pond.
“Countless candles...” Tsubaki paused, feeling a thick glob of blood beginning to coat the back of her throat. Managing a stern swallow as the woman began to right herself again the incantation was continued.
“...one million lights, small suns against the bastion of blackness.” Her blurred vision came back to focus just long enough to see the creature that wore her flesh make straight for her with burning eyes and killing intent.
LIVING SHAME, NOT HIDDEN AWAY ANYMORE!
Lithe and lethal fingers grabbed a handful of her loose hair, throwing her face first into the craggy crust with a motion similar to one cracking a whip. The world bled brilliant shades of blinding white and screaming red as her vision and senses were momentarily worthless due to being slammed into the stone with inhuman force. Despite the onslaught, a quick fragment left her lips as Tsubaki struggled to recover.
“The exalted sets you free.”
Around the pair of warring women the sky split open, flooding the battered battlefield with blinding spears of living light. Warm sunlight greeted her skin like the knowing assurance of an old friend, making the former Captain smile in spite of the pain.
WON’T SAVE, WON’T STOP! SNUFF THE SOUL, SNUFF THE SUN!
A manic cackle cracked like thunder across the desolation, a sure sign the second Tsubaki had no intention of slowing down. As the original woman clumsily found her feet for a fleeting second the monster was upon her like lightning, hitting dead-center in the chest with two fists balled together in a makeshift bludgeon of knotted knuckles. With both her weight and wind chased free of the frame the former Templar Queen fell backwards onto the sharp earth once again, gashed and gasping.
Not yet. You have not beaten me yet.
“Gentle night, shroud of silence and sight for Moons eternal. Cloak of rest and renewal!” As air returned to her lungs Tsubaki didn’t bother to get up, opting instead to hurry the process along from her prone position.
ABSURD WORDS, DEATH FIRST BEFORE THE WORST!
Two hands stained with blood and dust grabbed the former Captain by her collar, jerking her free of the ground and pulling her quickly into a collision course with the creature’s forehead. Another blinding flash of crimson and white filled her senses, jarring her balance and the bouncing thoughts in her head as if they had both been struck by a moving car.
Tsubaki found her back returned to the earth underfoot before she could so much as register the change of location, senses and thoughts both spinning and messily muddled.
“The exalted sets you free.”
A rumbling roar of a nearly immeasurable power flowed over the wasteland like a tidal wave, pushed up and into the light from erupting earth and flowing fissures from dark depths never glimpsed by living eyes.
Day and night mingled across the battlefield, each one biting and scratching at the dominion the other had claimed and searching for a weakness undefinable. An exceedingly rare moment of luck found Tsubaki as the living night washed over where she lay, hiding her from view long enough to find her hands and knees and place them back beneath her body.
NO ESCAPE! NO STOPPING! LIGHT CANNOT REPEL! DARKNESS DOMINATES! The creature’s words were as erratic as ever, but getting more agitated by the second. Whether it was the inability to stop Tsubaki from releasing the seals or a simple matter of unsated bloodlust would be a question to ponder another time.
CHOKING NIGHT, BURNING LIGHT! SCRATCH AND SEAR! SCREAM ETERNAL! BURN, BURN FOREVER!
As the lunatic continued to shout at the heart of the world Tsubaki sat slumped on all fours upon the pitted plain, trying to gather her courage as best she was able.
It all depends on this one...if it even works.
With as much determination as she could muster the former Captain spit a thick glob of saliva muddled a deep red with mingled blood into her hands, pressing them against the skin of a thirsty and anxious world.
If this is to be my grave, I am prepared. At the very least, she will burn with me.
“What cannot be undone, be made undone all the same.” While the somber words seemed little more than a whisper in the tempest of energy around her, at once the ground began to shudder and quake on an uneasy axis.
“Let all blood that is spilled and spent be returned, let condemnation and ruin be cast aside.”
CANNOT STOP ME! CANNOT KILL ME! RUN AND HIDE, RUN AND HIDE! HIDE THE HIDE OR FLAY ALIVE! Elsewhere the lunatic was darting from place to place in the eye of a quickly forming storm, taunting and tittering with unyielding rage and readiness to kill.
Around Tsubaki the darkness was beginning to ebb away, being slowly swept up into the column of winding shards of sun and shade and howling wind.
Time was running out.
“Sin of subjugations to be atoned, essence of slave and slaver to be repaid and returned. Through the blood of the master let those made to serve be sent to rest!”
Around her hands and knees the blackened soil grew soft and wet, shuddering like an apprehensive beast at the touch of a stranger. The sickly scent of rusting iron and gore filled the air like a sticky spectre all its own, leaving traces on all it touched and a brief moment of hope for the once-Templar Queen.
It could be made right again. Her choice had not been a damning one.
With a momentary redoubling of purpose the battered woman pressed her palms deeper into the now yielding earth, letting the incantation ring clearly into the eye of the storm that roared and ravaged the desolate landscape.
“SIN AND STONE, MADNESS BORN BOTH OF BLOOD AND BOLDNESS BE LAID BARE! LET MY REPENT RING CLEAR, LET MY HEART SHINE WITH SOLITARY GRACE ONCE AGAIN! SOUL AND SANGUINE BE PAID!”
Intangible hands pulled everything that flowed within her thoughts and veins down into the mantle of stone, dragging her essence into the center of the world and cutting clean from the body. Pain and pleasure danced upon lines of separation that had never been drawn, flooding into her brain with an avalanche of ecstasy and agony and chasing all rationality away for the moment.
...no, could only grant rest. Couldn’t stop, couldn’t sleep now.
...No! Couldn’t! Could. Not! Creature still stalking! So much left undone, so much left to atone and achieve!
I SAID NO!
Cold. Cold and growing distance under grinding stone. Being pushed away from the warmth, away from the rest and promises of peace.
I have freed those unjustly taken for you, but this is MY world! MINE! I will not see it taken away...not by her, not by you! Not by anyone!
The avalanche was gone, the flood of spirited senses and fuzzy thought drained away like water chased from a tipped glass. Eyes made momentarily blind to everything snapped open like gunshots, finding two eyes of hellish red burning inches away from her own.
In the center of the storm that now spun nearly out of control at the heart of her world, the lunatic spoke two happy little words n a tone filled with a thousand different voices.
“Found you.”
[1,389]
Rage. Nowhere. Everywhere. Too many places at once, too many to count, let alone stop. The hissing companion was gone. No more need for malicious whispers, the creature was free by the hand of the former Captain herself.
YOU WANT TO LET ME LOOSE JUST TO SHUT ME AWAY AGAIN?!
A fist slammed into her right ribs like the blow of a hammer, cracking bone on contact and sending the woman skidding across the jagged earth like a stone being skipped upon a pond.
“Countless candles...” Tsubaki paused, feeling a thick glob of blood beginning to coat the back of her throat. Managing a stern swallow as the woman began to right herself again the incantation was continued.
“...one million lights, small suns against the bastion of blackness.” Her blurred vision came back to focus just long enough to see the creature that wore her flesh make straight for her with burning eyes and killing intent.
LIVING SHAME, NOT HIDDEN AWAY ANYMORE!
Lithe and lethal fingers grabbed a handful of her loose hair, throwing her face first into the craggy crust with a motion similar to one cracking a whip. The world bled brilliant shades of blinding white and screaming red as her vision and senses were momentarily worthless due to being slammed into the stone with inhuman force. Despite the onslaught, a quick fragment left her lips as Tsubaki struggled to recover.
“The exalted sets you free.”
Around the pair of warring women the sky split open, flooding the battered battlefield with blinding spears of living light. Warm sunlight greeted her skin like the knowing assurance of an old friend, making the former Captain smile in spite of the pain.
WON’T SAVE, WON’T STOP! SNUFF THE SOUL, SNUFF THE SUN!
A manic cackle cracked like thunder across the desolation, a sure sign the second Tsubaki had no intention of slowing down. As the original woman clumsily found her feet for a fleeting second the monster was upon her like lightning, hitting dead-center in the chest with two fists balled together in a makeshift bludgeon of knotted knuckles. With both her weight and wind chased free of the frame the former Templar Queen fell backwards onto the sharp earth once again, gashed and gasping.
Not yet. You have not beaten me yet.
“Gentle night, shroud of silence and sight for Moons eternal. Cloak of rest and renewal!” As air returned to her lungs Tsubaki didn’t bother to get up, opting instead to hurry the process along from her prone position.
ABSURD WORDS, DEATH FIRST BEFORE THE WORST!
Two hands stained with blood and dust grabbed the former Captain by her collar, jerking her free of the ground and pulling her quickly into a collision course with the creature’s forehead. Another blinding flash of crimson and white filled her senses, jarring her balance and the bouncing thoughts in her head as if they had both been struck by a moving car.
Tsubaki found her back returned to the earth underfoot before she could so much as register the change of location, senses and thoughts both spinning and messily muddled.
“The exalted sets you free.”
A rumbling roar of a nearly immeasurable power flowed over the wasteland like a tidal wave, pushed up and into the light from erupting earth and flowing fissures from dark depths never glimpsed by living eyes.
Day and night mingled across the battlefield, each one biting and scratching at the dominion the other had claimed and searching for a weakness undefinable. An exceedingly rare moment of luck found Tsubaki as the living night washed over where she lay, hiding her from view long enough to find her hands and knees and place them back beneath her body.
NO ESCAPE! NO STOPPING! LIGHT CANNOT REPEL! DARKNESS DOMINATES! The creature’s words were as erratic as ever, but getting more agitated by the second. Whether it was the inability to stop Tsubaki from releasing the seals or a simple matter of unsated bloodlust would be a question to ponder another time.
CHOKING NIGHT, BURNING LIGHT! SCRATCH AND SEAR! SCREAM ETERNAL! BURN, BURN FOREVER!
As the lunatic continued to shout at the heart of the world Tsubaki sat slumped on all fours upon the pitted plain, trying to gather her courage as best she was able.
It all depends on this one...if it even works.
With as much determination as she could muster the former Captain spit a thick glob of saliva muddled a deep red with mingled blood into her hands, pressing them against the skin of a thirsty and anxious world.
If this is to be my grave, I am prepared. At the very least, she will burn with me.
“What cannot be undone, be made undone all the same.” While the somber words seemed little more than a whisper in the tempest of energy around her, at once the ground began to shudder and quake on an uneasy axis.
“Let all blood that is spilled and spent be returned, let condemnation and ruin be cast aside.”
CANNOT STOP ME! CANNOT KILL ME! RUN AND HIDE, RUN AND HIDE! HIDE THE HIDE OR FLAY ALIVE! Elsewhere the lunatic was darting from place to place in the eye of a quickly forming storm, taunting and tittering with unyielding rage and readiness to kill.
Around Tsubaki the darkness was beginning to ebb away, being slowly swept up into the column of winding shards of sun and shade and howling wind.
Time was running out.
“Sin of subjugations to be atoned, essence of slave and slaver to be repaid and returned. Through the blood of the master let those made to serve be sent to rest!”
Around her hands and knees the blackened soil grew soft and wet, shuddering like an apprehensive beast at the touch of a stranger. The sickly scent of rusting iron and gore filled the air like a sticky spectre all its own, leaving traces on all it touched and a brief moment of hope for the once-Templar Queen.
It could be made right again. Her choice had not been a damning one.
With a momentary redoubling of purpose the battered woman pressed her palms deeper into the now yielding earth, letting the incantation ring clearly into the eye of the storm that roared and ravaged the desolate landscape.
“SIN AND STONE, MADNESS BORN BOTH OF BLOOD AND BOLDNESS BE LAID BARE! LET MY REPENT RING CLEAR, LET MY HEART SHINE WITH SOLITARY GRACE ONCE AGAIN! SOUL AND SANGUINE BE PAID!”
Intangible hands pulled everything that flowed within her thoughts and veins down into the mantle of stone, dragging her essence into the center of the world and cutting clean from the body. Pain and pleasure danced upon lines of separation that had never been drawn, flooding into her brain with an avalanche of ecstasy and agony and chasing all rationality away for the moment.
Warm....she was warm.
Was this right? So far down, so far from the sun and sky locked in a prison of stone. Shouldn’t have been warm, shouldn’t have been so comforting...inviting....
Was this right? So far down, so far from the sun and sky locked in a prison of stone. Shouldn’t have been warm, shouldn’t have been so comforting...inviting....
...no, could only grant rest. Couldn’t stop, couldn’t sleep now.
Only for a moment? So much pain, so much death dealt and dredged up. Had earned it, hadn’t she? Let them go away for a moment. World could still turn. Earned it.
...No! Couldn’t! Could. Not! Creature still stalking! So much left undone, so much left to atone and achieve!
So much work, so many many trials. Will need your res-
I SAID NO!
Cold. Cold and growing distance under grinding stone. Being pushed away from the warmth, away from the rest and promises of peace.
I have freed those unjustly taken for you, but this is MY world! MINE! I will not see it taken away...not by her, not by you! Not by anyone!
The avalanche was gone, the flood of spirited senses and fuzzy thought drained away like water chased from a tipped glass. Eyes made momentarily blind to everything snapped open like gunshots, finding two eyes of hellish red burning inches away from her own.
In the center of the storm that now spun nearly out of control at the heart of her world, the lunatic spoke two happy little words n a tone filled with a thousand different voices.
“Found you.”
[1,389]
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