{ THE TREASURE ROOM } BATTLEGROUNDS CONCLUSION P 31

[x_Nata_x]

As soon as Conquest -- the true Conquest -- showed up, Eris knew s**t was getting real. The gravity around them pulsed, and in that half a second before the attack came, War's eyes flicked to Invictus, surprise etched in her eyes, not recognizing it for what it truly was. Had he betrayed them? In their time since the Island, never once had she thought he might be capable of it. But as the field of energy grew, forcing them prostrate to the ground, the realization of what was truly happening dawned on her, and her hurt expression vanished, replaced by one of complete, fearful respect.

Invictus' father was as beautiful as his son. The flowing robes paled in comparison to the delicate, although distinctly masculine beauty, everything about him ornate and calmly sinister -- everything Eris was not. Dropping her eyes, she would have knelt had she been standing, yet the effect of his gravity forced her into a far more submissive pose, something she resented immediately. Seething quietly, she flicked her eyes up only to meet his gaze, his foreboding stare almost as distinctive a warning as the words themselves, and she felt the burn of hot, anxious acid in her veins.

The void came, but she made no move to try to avoid it, bracing her arms across her chest as she embraced the pain of dissipation.  

[naggeela]

She was just waiting for an opening to attack once more as her weapon still wanted her to hit the creature he picked out. Tori did wonder why but wasn’t going to ask as she knew her weapon had his reasons.

Watching at the other figure had come into view to hear ‘conquest’ she knew it was a horseman and different to the she had met, a full fledged one. Then all of a sudden she had been forced to the ground by an unbearable pressure something that she had never experienced before in her life.

Ok she take that back, right this second when the horseman’s Fear hit, Aklin whined as he could no longer protect his hunter. he said in soothing voice as he tried to comfort her and she just barely heard him. Tori had never felt so much pain in her life as she gasped for breath that wouldn’t come. She starting to black out as she watched that horseman and Caelius even her eyes felt like they were going to pop out.

If that wasn’t enough feeling more pain when her finger and then her toes started to break, she didn’t want to die not now there was too much that she wanted to do. Tori felt the warm blood running on her face. Aklin making soothing noises and moving around to make sure his little one knew he was still there. Just as everything was going black it all stopped.

Tori heard that they were disposable from Caelius, she didn’t like that one bit. Hurting so much while getting back up, once up she felt so dizzy from the pain and used Alkin as a walking stick to help her get to the portal when she heard someone tell them to retreat with his chain clinking as she walked. It hurt so much to walk but she did with Aklin being soothing and prodding her to continue on. Glad to be going home and only felt safe when she had gone through the portal.

(( Exit ))  

[Nothing Yet]

Never had Thackery been so relieved to have plenty of distractions around him. The other students were largely caught up in their own scarps and squabbles with hunters they had seen before, or caught in the hazed confusion of the haunted house and enveloping fog. It wasn't as if he and Reine were commanding a particularly high level of attention towards them - certainly not as much as the groups having shouting matches - but he still felt uneasy. He didn't want to dissipate. He didn't want them to trap him again. And he definitely didn't want to be turned into a weapon.

Maybe? The single word left a jump in his throat. How could he feel okay about protecting someone who wasn't sure of their friendship? He glanced sidelong at her weapon and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt, shifting in uncomfortable silence as she moved, positioning them back-to-back. The typically talkative boil didn't have any idea what to say. But Reine did, and Thackery found himself eager to follow the instructions of a hunter.

His tail had just begun to wag in contentment when he felt himself being pressed into the ground. They'd tricked him! It was another net, wasn't it? He barely got out a whimper of betrayal before he realized that Reine wasn't standing either. Nobody was. The horsemen's harsh words fell on ears that were pressed back in fright. It seemed as if he were ready to move on, his lecture completed, when he heard the sickening crunches of flesh-covered bones breaking.

Reine's delicate fingers looked wrong. He didn't know much about humans, but he didn't think that they should bend that way. Trickles of blood stood out harshly against her light hair. She was in pain. He was killing her.

And Thackery could only lay there watching, incapable of even reaching out to comfort her.

Stare fixed upon the hunter, he could only hear the resulting commotion from the two leaders' clash. There was shouting. There was movement. There was a sudden burst of overwhelming pain, and he shut his eyes: a simple action, but one that he would regret every time the scene replayed in his head.

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move. He flashed out of existence.

When he opened his eyes again, it was with a gasp. Propped up on his hands and knees, he frantically searched in every direction for her, but she was gone. Only the other students remained, and they were back at Amityville...back in the wrong bodies again. Like nothing ever happened.

As the others composed themselves and walked off, one-by-one, some in groups, he drew his knees up to his chest and just sat there in thought and shame.

What a disgrace he was as a Cerberus, watching someone slowly die, then losing her only moments after he had promised to protect her. That in itself was terrible enough, yet the bitter words and warnings against the hunters, the taunts and teasing he'd encountered after chasing the red-cloaked figure, jabbing at him for making such an oath to one of their most dangerous enemies. What would everyone think? Would his brothers reject him? Could he still say that he had any friends, once they all knew?

He'd thought that being trapped in the body of a ghoul would be the most distressing thing to deal with today, but he neither commented on nor acknowledged his change of gender as he finally made his way back to the school.

danse-hexe

[exit]  

[Baneful]

To say Zar was annoyed was to understate his feelings on the matter, Conquest arriving on the scene in a show of complete and utter control and power, yet another creature apparently something to do with Amityville, out to harm them. His ear rung agonisingly as he could only glare as the gathered people were /judged/. Who the hell was this guy to comment on their abilities?

However it /all/ made sense as he pointed at Invictus. His son? Zar knew the guy was bad news from the start, he /knew/ it. The council had to do with this setup. At least it seemed this time he'd messed up somehow, perhaps that was why they were still alive.

Not everyone seemed to be so lightly affected however the strange reaper figures seeming to really suffer Conquest's wrath for whatever reason there was, making Zar cringe with the sounds of bone giving way under pressure.

And then the reaper with the scythe lunged into action, seeming to make the arrogant horseman reconsider, or at least pause... and why did he keep calling them humans? Humans couldn't even be here.

And then vortexes. Jacking vortexes everywhere. Vortexes that got chronically out of control

He knew it was coming once again and closed his eyes, trying not to shake in the face of death again, hugging the housecoat close as the chaos thundered towards him.

And then agony, agony that lasted much too long as Zar got to experience a new flavour of death. His second in hardly any months at all.

 

[danse-hexe]

The man looked distinctly familiar, and even though she had never seen him before she knew who he was- or what he was. A horseman. Like the small child that had been locked up in a room on their island once, but decidedly more grown-up, and when he spoke she felt her whole body trembling, faltering, crumpling to the ground even as she strained to keep her head up.

She would not.. bow to this, if she had a choice; not even when the overwhelming FEAR had her plastered against the ground, sand biting into her face. The pain was excruciating, like nothing she had experienced before; as if something was literally tearing the skin off of her, as if her whole head was about to burst, and the only thing Reine could do was squeeze her eyes shut and grit her teeth, small whimpers escaping her until finally the soft cracking sounds of bone breaking tore a scream from her throat.

Reine had broken her arm before, fractured an ankle; she had never felt her bones literally crumbling. Was this how it was going to end, then, a few short months of...

Stillness. As suddenly as it had begun it simply stopped, and only the bright flashes of blue gave her any clue at all as to what had happened. Reine's fingers twitched as she willed herself to stand up again, and to find him; but it was hard enough to breathe, much less turn her head towards him and tell him the 'yes' she should have said. Closing her eyes again she forced herself to move, one palm pressing into the ground as she tried to pull herself up, and then another, and then she was finally on her knees, looking wildly for him- there. Lying on the ground, closer to her than she'd thought, but before she could take a step the ground beneath her shook, and there was no time to hesitate before voices were calling out for her, yelling at her to run into the portal.

She promised to protect him, and she had failed miserably.

Back in the campus, Reine collapsed into the large teddy bear still left along the hallway and lay there sobbing. It felt like Thackery's fur had, warm and comforting, but that just made her feel sick now; she had run away and left him, when he had stayed by her side when she needed it.

I will see you again, she decided. Somehow or other, I will see you again, and I will repay my debt, and..

She only wished it were that simple.

Nothing Yet

 

[Dragain]

Ariane had felt a lot of pain before, back during that"test" where they were measured and judged by the higher-ups of the facility - it was the test where she had first experienced death, although it wasn't true death. She was chewed on to near death by vicious piranhas before being offed by a poisonous dart from a trap she had accidentally sprung, almost immediately after that incident.

It wasn't a pretty way to die.

However, the pain that she was feeling now was tenfold, as she felt herself pinned to the ground by an invisible force pressing down on her. She couldn't even keep her hands on the chains of her weapon; instead, they were sprawled out on the grass as she struggled to breathe, gasping for air. The strange figure that had their dear leader occupied seemed to be the source of this invisible force, and for once, Ariane felt true fear... She wasn't frightened of death - being a hunter was an occupational hazard and like a soldier, she knew that if she aimed to kill, there would be others aiming to kill her - but she was afraid of things that were way, way beyond her control. She was afraid of being weak and helpless.

Weak and helpless like she was feeling now.

The conversation between Caelius and the figure was mostly lost to her, although she did hear something about how disposable they were... Ha... She already knew that. She coughed suddenly, the pressure pushing the air out of her lungs; she could taste blood in her mouth even as she concentrated on not blacking out and breathing, her eyes squeezed shut as her bones started to creak under the force before finally cracking, unable to withstand the pressure. She could feel something warm trickling down her nose, from her ears; there was not one part of her body that didn't feel battered and bruised...

... And then, it all stopped. Sure, the pain continued, but she could breathe again. She could, with some difficultly and a lot of pain, lift her head from the ground and open her now bloodshot eyes without feeling like they were about to burst or pop out of their sockets. In the background, she heard someone who sounded a lot like Clarice yelling something about running away. Something about a portal. Something about-

<-OULY! CAN YOU HEAR ME? RUN! RUN NOW! RUN!>

Kintama's frantic voice caused her to really observe what exactly was happening, and there, in front of her, was a portal on the ground. She was injured - heavily so - and while she knew that you really shouldn't move when something, or in this case, a lot of somethings, are broken, she knew that she had to move. Move or die.



Her weapon was desummoned quickly, and she started to crawl with a determined look on her face, adrenaline allowing her to move despite her condition, pulling herself forward using her arms while pushing with her legs, until she was at the edge of the portal. There, she closed her eyes again, on the brink of fainting from pure exhaustion and pain, and just allowed herself to fall...

[Exit!]  

[iloveyouDIE]

Bix remembered this forced kneel from his time on the island. The flaming hell pony. This was the first time he knowledgeably had seen that particular horseman and also now was almost killed by that horseman's father.

The archer was only able to slide, roll mostly, into the portal under the excruciating duress of gravity.

[EXIT]
-----------------------

Ulmuka was slightly in awe of the elder horsemen.

Until he was killed by him.

[EXIT]  

[Saliru]

Nuru wasn't paying attention at all to anything anymore by that point. He'd long since decided it was far too chaotic and that Zars housecoat and bunny slippers were just far too much to ignore so instead settled to commit the ridiculousness to memory. That was... until Zar's face suddenly shifted to one of horror and he seemed to brace for impact.

Nuru barely had any time at all to react to the incoming chaos. Making a valiant leap towards Zar ... only to be consumed mid air.

He'd like to say he made it and died trying to protect Zar, he'd also like to say this didn't hurt. He couldn't say either in earnest. The pain was mind blowing and definitely... new. But at least it blasted past rather fast, leaving nothing but an eerie sort of relief in their wake.
 

[Carhop Cavalier]

Oh, so these were the Hunters that'd she'd heard so much about? Mot had briefly described them in his caffeine buzz, and told her that they were unbeatable. So yes, Gene was a very scared ghoul at the moment. She couldn't find any person or thing to hide behind, and continued looking around, panic now painting itself red across her pale face.

She didn't need to be scared of the Hunters, though. No, there was a far worse, far more terrible presence at work in the area. She was immediately grounded upon the first footfall of the hooded figure, and at the second she was on her knees. By the time he had arrived in their vicinity, Gene was completely prostrate, clutching her chest in agony. She'd never felt pain like this kind - a crushing, all body encompassing type that hurt her very being. She wanted to just stop existing, in those few moments. To leave everything behind, if only to stop the immense pain.

She thought the arrival of the Hunter with the scythe would bring a stop to the pain, but she was wrong. He had caused some kind of slip up on the Hooded man's part, and now there was a void that was going to simply crush them all under it's pressure. She could feel her body being torn and ravaged, wrecked by the force of gravity. Her eyes were squeezed shut, as if that would make the pain go away,

It didn't.  

[Scott Eros Archer]

Diana had thanked the zombie in his own way for saving him from the coins but after that moment had decided to just ignore everything that was going around him. To him it wasn't as if it had anything to do with him anyway so why should he bother with it? So even when he was forced to the ground he just sighed and went with it. When he was finally sent back to the gates he just sighed, stood and dusted himself off before going about his business as if nothing had happened. It was just some awful nightmare after all. Either that or 'her' parents didn't tell her everything there was to know about 'her' new school. Although, he would never would tell anyone. he Hated that feeling of fear that had seeped into his bones at the sound of that one guys voice. It was just.. wrong. Shaking the memory from his head once more he left.

EXITING