|
    |
Tommy arrives from RP Nexus.
*
Tommy has arrived.
*
A New Year burgeoning in the great city of New York has already brought with it new difficulties. Aliens, broken bridges, and now, within the Mystical community — a sense of disruption.
Sequestered away in the Bronx, nearby to the river, construction has begun on one of the streets running parallel to the Joseph Rodman Drake Park. Nestled within is a graveyard, most venerated and dating back several hundred years. The tombstones of famous, infamous, and unknown alike rise from the thin layer of snow that blankets the sectioned-off area of the park. Wrought-iron fencing surrounds it and endeavors to keep trespassers out and the supernatural within…
However, an error on the part of the foreman has led to the removal of a single paneling of the fence line and the growing suspicion that, quite frankly, the construction site is haunted. Machines have been either breaking down or malfunctioning with some near-dangerous misses; a backhoe nearly beheaded someone who stood a little too close to its pivoted turn radius. Said machine has been the focus of much of the eerie behavior and the operator finally left the site after complaining of someone whispering in his ear in some foreign language as well as the drag of cold fingers down his spine.
The malcontent can be felt across the Astral Plane. It's not necessarily a call for aid, but not something that the sensitive can ignore. A miasm of wrongness that can't be refuted lingers on and on, even as snow drifts down to collect on the recently-abandoned site.
*
The area around the park is a haunt of poets, by name if not proof. Longfellow and Whittier make good company for the Transian woman watching over Hunts Point. Wooded and lovely, the parkland is far less violent and fraught than Central Park and the Bronx a world away from other cares in her relative backyard. Walking down a paved path adjacent to the browned thatch of a lawn, she might be another mourner come to examine the historical markers preserved against the ravages of time. Some of them, at any rate. The crooked stones show those interred slaves and servants yet to have theirs shored up, proof that even in death, there's a social pecking order.
Silver knives and salt tucked into her belt give her far from usual mourning materials, a press of lilies tucked into the buttonhole of her coat. She moves at a fairly purposeful clip, all things considered, eyes saturated to the Sight and sensitive deep into the realms invisible and beyond. Crunch, crunch. Trouble might feel like coming out to chase down someone out to disturb its lair, or curiosity to see why she might lay down a flower near the disturbed sight that's supposedly haunted.
Trust a Roma to know.
*
It's freaking cold outside, but that's what hot, juicy pizza is for: between Tommy and Billy, they can put a SERIOUS dent in some pies, that's for sure. The twins could probably keep a pizza place floating all by themselves. For his part, Billy is a pepperoni, sausage and olives kind of guy, so perhaps they share slices, or perhaps they have their own. But this is what is going on when Billy feels a wrongness crawl up his spine and lodge itself in the base of his skull. Fortunately, he ate plenty and really eating more is largely out of the challenge then any particular need. So, he looks sideways to Tommy, and is all: "Duuude, something bad is going to happen." Beat, "I have no idea what. Wanna go fix the world?" And with that, he's grabbing a last slice, and heading for the door, nibbling on it as he moves. As soon as people can't see him, he's zipping up into the air and leading the much faster but ground-bound brother towards the crazy bit of whoa that is making his bones tingle. Of course, eating pizza while flying through super cold air? Means cold pizza.
Who cares?
*
Bite, chewchewchew, swallow. Bite, chewchewchew, swallow. Tommy eats very efficiently, using his speed at just the right moments to make it so that he can devour food like a normal person… but at the same time also be able to talk with little to no interruption.
When Billy has his moment of feeling a little… strange? Tommy arches brows in unison. There's a pause. A look to Billy, a look to remaining pizza. A look to Billy, another look to the pizza.
"The world's gonna owe me one." Tommy replies, standing up… stacking most of the remaining slices between his hands, and walking out of the shop. Then he's off like a bolt. Occasionally running in a circle because he's that much faster and doesn't know the destination. But that gives him more time to nom, so it's all good.
*
The atmosphere of the graveyard is muted by the tiny snowflakes. No sound, of course, enhanced by the covering of white, and the weather lends a sense of beautiful decorum. The sense of discontent pulsates most heavily nearest to the far corner of the graveyard. Here, the machinery rests in the shadow of a giant old maple tree. The spread of its branches reaches beyond the wrought-iron fencing and well into the graveyard proper. A few vandalisms are inscribed into its bark, mostly the drunk musings of lovers or an idle brag.
*
"Who's the one crossing the wide river,
Who's the avenging hero?
Who's the one that strikes fear into
The ones oppressing our poor kind?"
Transliterated from Transian, the old revolutionary song lifts off her lips in all its bucolic splendour. To English ears, it simply sounds lovely with a lot of Zs in lay — viteaz, razbunator, astazi, zbirii! What excitement. Though not exactly a mourning song, for the child of a Balkan nation, all folksongs have their element of sorrow stitched into the fine tune. Her hands put deep into her coat pockets, Wanda meanders off the beaten path to one less traveled, trudging her way through the snow. No difficulty for her, she has a good grounding and little fear of floating aloft if she has to. The sound of a speedster approaching her is probably lost in the light crunch, though wariness sets her on edge at the best of times. Here, she remains altogether vigilant as she tracks the fenceline, taking her time to edge along it to the exterior. Her gaze is very much on whatever is inside, but she hasn't climbed up on the rails yet. Better to hop like a rabbit and see what can be seen first from beyond.
*
Hesitating at the edge of the graveyard, Billy comes to a halt, waiting the quarter point one miliseconds likely before Tommy arrives. Assuming he didn't get lost or something, Billy gives a bit of a shiver, "Do you hear that?" he asks aloud, "The drums? Here come the drums. Drums are a bad sign. Drums mean someone is doing something and I swear I feel like I'm being watched." Just in case, because everyone knows that its effective against ghosts, electricity begins arcing along his arm and collecting in his palm. It has the added benefit of providing some solid illumination as he makes his way in— "Wanda!" he calls as he catches sight of her, "It felt like my soul shrunk two sizes and hid under a rock." he explains his presence thus.
*
The journey officially takes Tommy over towards the graveyard, and to say the least? It gives him more than a little bit of the creeps. Arrival coincides with a brief run /around/ the place… then through, moving at speeds that the human eye would have trouble seeing if able to see at all. It's a solid way to do recon. The run stops when he spies Wanda. Stopping. Grinning. "Hi! Your brother says hello." the speedster offers.
Then his eyes focus on the tree. He can't see anything /strange/ going on. but that doesn't stop him from being the aggressive force of nature he is. So there's a zip over /towards/ it, and frankly? He's going to try and poke the thing. Right in the bark, on the basis of /because he can./
*
"No, he eats Twinkies and is over there doing bad things," Wanda points over her shoulder towards a relatively west by northwesterly direction, unerring, meaning she invokes complete chance or knows precisely what she talks about. All the same, she raises her gloved hand in greeting. That a dusting of salt happens to spill in a line in front of her has nothing to do with anything, only a modicum of an accident involving crystals and powder. Her line becomes something of an oval as she tilts her head, capturing a sound. Sounds, as it happens. "Don't mention noises. Only the good things you want." Easy for her to resume her tune, warm as day, picking up where the four-four time left off. All is in her native Transian, lilting through her mezzo-soprano and soaring along the octave on a lazy vocal beat of gilded wings.
"Who's the one who walks surrounded by friends,
And avoided by hunters?
Who's the one freeing the captives,
Bound by ones who hurt our country?"
*
"Ummm, Tommy! That's maybe—" But really, what's the use pretending you can warn someone if they can get themselves into trouble before your first few words are even fully thought of? But, he blinks a moment at Wanda. Only mention good things? Well, that's easy, "I want Doritos and an iced mocha latte with an extra shot." He pauses, glances around at the cold winter graveyard, "Maybe not so much the ice, come to think of it. Heck, I'll settle for hot chocolate with cinnamon." But he's padding over towards the Tree of Doom in case it decides to eat Tommy. Eating Tommy is bad.
*
There's a /brief/ thought that occurs in Tommy's hand; go join Pietro in whatever mayhem he may be engaging in. However, there's another thing that resonates with him — protecting the ones close to him. Two of them are standing here in the face of danger, so that's the part that makes him stay. The world? Meh. The f-word that he has trouble committing to? Yeah, that's worth saving any day of the week.
Wanda's warning catches his ears. Only talk about good things? Well then. "I want a stack of pizza taller than me, and like, a river of mountain dew. Also a balmy seventy degr—"
Fortunately, the one thing that Tommy knows about poking things that he probably shouldn't — yes, Billy, he knows he probably shouldn't be doing this — is to expect the unexpected and bad. Such as the icicles that come down towards him as he attempts to get close. "Hey, /hey!/ Cut it out, you oversized snowcone!" ..yes, sticking with happy thoughts. A snowcone would be nice about now. Even in this cold weather.
*
ROLL: Tommy +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 20
*
It seems that the sudden rush of the pale-haired speedster has triggered a defensive front by whatever holds up the misty illusion surrounding the tree that keeps the Mystics from prying further with the Sight! The crashing of the frozen spears surrounds Tommy and only his speed may save him from suddenly becoming a Speed-cicle. It's clear that whatever guards the tree is keen on keeping everyone from coming near to it, even at the expense of life itself.
*
Completing the orbit around herself, Wanda brings her folded fingers together, poised in a curled heart of sorts, thumbs poised. Then she extends her index fingers until the pads touch, shaping the ajna mudra. A word falls dreamlike from her lips, softly rendered with implacable authority. "Aum."
A flick of her wrist breaks the motion and spreads a tendril of incarnadine magic upon Tommy, saturating his senses with a growing brilliance invoked from the witch's full spectrum of view over the world. Ephemeral shades take form, ghosts at the fringes of the vibrant world come alive in countless colours. There are so many shades of green beyond green, and ultraviolet and infrared just as a start between the widening ends of the visual range. He'll hear too, for within her bearing the hammer-pound of drums must contend with a much older, deeper music: that of the universe itself, soaring and trilling to the luminous vibrations of stars and pinwheeling galaxies, an ordered chaos, a chaotic order, spread through the void where even dark matter hums right along with the incandescent whole.
"Billy, we might replace the fence. Or we might see what this wants to hide?" A question.
*
Calling out at the sight of the ice shards, Billy reacts on instinct: he flings a hand and— just manages to stop himself from flinging a bolt of lightning at the tree, since that might knock MORE ice shards down on Tommy. But he pads over that way, "Hot chocolate with cinnamon and a croissant, warm and fresh slathered with butter— why are we thinking happy thoughts again?" His other hand comes up, and bands of pure force solidfy over Tommy, so if anything decides to fall on him, it's going to have to get through Billy-boy's mindgrab. "See what wants to hide." is his decision for Wanda with a quick nod and a narrowed eyes. Someone just tried to kill Tommy. That means someone's gonna get their ass whooped.
*
Bad ideas often lead to the very best of times. Eyes go wide at the sight of the falling ice spears — oh, Tommy's fast. Yes, he's /that/ fast. But that doesn't mean that he can't be caught unaware, and the second volley does just that. Then Billy's into action, and he watches at the icicles shatter above him. "Quick reaction, Billy — color me impressed!" quips Tommy.
…and speaking of /colors./ Wanda's spell takes hold and opens Tommy's eyes to the kinds of things he'd never imagined. "They're… /everywhere./" he intones, blinking once, blinking twice. And then spying Wanda. Who looks… wow. /That's/ new. Give him a moment. The man who's primary offense consists of punching things really quickly needs to figure out how to land a fist or ten on a ghost.
*
The spirits in the graveyard surrounding them all seem to draw away at the show of Mystical powers. They return to their graves proper and watch.
Rhythmic drums come to a jarring stop, leaving all to hear naught but the environmental sounds of the wintry cemetery and park around them. The sensation of being glared at intensifies as the illusion drops to reveal…
The presence of five nearly-solid spirits, all so clear and with a sense of self as well as purpose. They are of the Weckquaesgeek tribe, once proud inhabitants of this land. All are tall and slender-waisted, though ultimately of varying heights and builds within this basic range. The two holding weaponry of spears and hatchets seem the strongest, with broad shoulders and the look of ones used to long hours of fighting. They glare and one even bares his teeth. Centrally is the leader, the most noble and quietly-reprimanding of all. He says nothing, but continues to glare with the weight of wisdom and confidence in his mien. At each side, an apprentice, younger but no less inclined to mimic their elder. The three remaining spirits are clearly shamanic judging by their lack of visible weaponry and intricately-decorated deer-skin clothing; beads and painted designs adorn them, though the apprentices lack any decoration but for tied fringes. The elder shaman wears a foxtail from his single braid and shells at his ears. All can be seen by those present, whether of Mystic ilk or not. The five spirits remain unmoving.
*
"Watch for anything that shows up grey, it shows something is wrong." The witch's pupils are practically lost under the holy glow of her Sight-infused gaze, and Tommy is going to be equally as burgundy. Hers trend much more amaranthine, and that reflects the dominant shade of her aura as she frames her hands in the ancient bhutadamara mudra. Ring fingers bend to touch her palms, middle finger crossing index, and her wrists crossed in front of her. Silver moonlight vibrates around her to the Sight; to others, she simply makes a benediction of a sort. It's a protective gesture, meaning to ward off evil, and a greeting such as one gives to the unknown.
"We give greetings to spirit brothers and sisters," she says, her blinks slow and her words measured. "Who has brought trouble here? I see that the pattern is changed. Was the digging distrupting you?"
*
Soo, that's a set of ghosts. Billy comes up to stand beside Wanda, and he eyes the ghosts, and .. he sticks his hands in his pockets. For two reasons: 1) It's cold out here! and 2) It keeps him from tossing lightning at ghosts. Because, you know, ghosts. He can't remember ever quite dealing with ghosts before, and he's not entirely sure he's equipped to properly handle them. Can you electrocute ghosts? Telepoke them? He asides, "Let me guess, they don't want us near the tree."
*
All five ghosts stand as spiritual barrier between encroachers and fence-line alike. It seems that they've been keeping the other newer ghosts from escaping! This may be an active choice or providential circumstance given the proximity of the venerated old oak tree to the broken fence-line, who knows? The wounds on one warrior show as a slow seep of blood too light to be anything but ectoplasm. One apprentice bears a wrapping of ghostly bandaging about his head.
One of the warriors steps forwards, spear angled outwards and says something. His lips clearly move, but the sound is garbled and another language entirely to boot! The elder shaman holds up a hand and the warrior takes a respectful step back, though continues to glare. He's of the opinion that these lively-ones have strayed too close to the fence-line and the tree itself. The noble man with the foxtail braided in raven-black hair seems to speak and his ghostly form, while nearly solid, takes on a haloing of mist.
From a far distance comes speech, wavering as if spoken down a long metal tube, and it takes a few resonant echoes to translate into the language of choice for the hearer:
"Do not come closer, please. This is unsafe ground. It would be better if you left." He continues to hold a hand outstretched in a gesture of warding. "We do not wish you harm. The pale-haired one moved too quickly for comfort." Tommy is the recipient of five simultaneous unamused glares that may cause the sensation of cold fingers along the nape of his neck. "This land has been undisturbed for many generations and the yellow metal creatures come too close for safety. We had to stop the digging to save many." No doubt the elder spirit means the manipulation of the construction equipment rising not far from the broken fence-line.
*
"They do not like the machines. I do not blame them. It digs what should be left alone." A child of the Old World might have such an opinion about disturbing ancient things, especially when it comes to digging them up and causing no little amount of upset in the meantime from the local inhabitants. With a roll of her shoulders, Wanda sweeps her hand to the side and shakes her head to the elder, though she keeps a stray eye towards the warriors. Of the three of them, it's likely only one has the means to get immediately out of trouble and relying on her combat skills to hold off five ghosts is a very bad outcome. She wets her lips in a thoughtful smudge. "What lies under the ground? I would repair the wall with my sons if it would protect those who live here and that which must not…" How does one say contaminate? "…taint..? the city."
It's a start, at least.
*
Tommy arrives from RP Nexus.
*
Tommy has arrived.
*
"Hey, yeah." Billy nods his head, following Wanda's lead, "Look if what you need is help repairing the wall, why, we're totally the people for you, you know? You can like not try to kill my brother anymore if we help you with that, right?" He glances over to the wall, narrows his eyes slightly, and reaches out with his will to seize a bit of the broken fence and bend it back into place. He chews on his lower lip a bit as he does so, "Though, fair warning… if someone has decided to you know dig— that means they got a permit— which means they aren't so much going to stop…"
*
The elder shaman shifts his attention to Wanda. "This is the resting site of a manitos, one of our kind unable to release his lust for the taboo rites of our beliefs. The yellow metal creatures dig too deep. The roots of this tree, blessed by our Corn Spirit and Earth Mother, should have kept it contained, but now…" The spirit's light seems to fade in harmonization with the fall of his expression. "The digging broke the barrier. We know not if he remains within the iron walls of your people — " He means those who came much after his death, "or if he has traveled beyond them. We cannot go beyond the sacred place of our passing, beneath the branches of this mighty oak. I would have him interred once more beneath her strong roots if this is within your powers. If not once more banished, then better truly dead."
His dark eyes shift to Billy. "You would fix the barrier not knowing whether the manitos remains contained within? You are brave, young one, but firstly, let us locate this…"
The speaker drops to silence as another sound wavers in the air. It's a hunting cry, a shriek phantasmal heard only within the mind, and all five spirits align towards it.
"It comes."
*
Manitos, manitou. She knows the latter term well enough to guess its application backwards to whatever the shaman speaks of. Blame a very, very large eagle somewhere for this, and a rather raggedy book from an upstate store. Wanda looks over her shoulder towards that odd cry rising over the fading explanation, words vanishing from sound. Her tradition may be a witch's, but not exclusively as she draws sigils rapidly in the air, calling on another technique that throws crackling sparks across her skin in a glimmering web and forms a shield in a nested ultraviolet web of sigils. Overlapping triangles spread up and down, contained within a sixteen point lotus, and that gives her a grounding to swing the yantra-shield up to intercept the next pass of that disquieted spirit.
Without turning to him, she says, "Billy? Do you hunt or guard? I will be the other. But if you guard, you seal the wall and I guide it to the tree again." And hope she can get out.
*
Hesitating only a moment, Billy nods his head slightly, "I'll guard. I'm not sure if my hoodoo is much good on something like this, but I know I can keep the wall sealed and keep anything in or out— until you're ready to escape. But I have some range so if you need backup, shout." And then he's moving towards the gate to take up his guarding position.
*
To the eyes of all and blotted against the sky, it is an oily smear of darkness taken humanoid form within the confines of a tattered robe that was once white. Mold and mud, effluence and blood, all smear it and it seems grimed around each spot with smoke or ash. Some might see a leering expression with skin drawn tight over a toothy skull, others might see a black hole of empty space, still another viewing may take on the impression of twin candles that burn sickly-bright to mock pupils within a nonexistent face.
A rattling hiss, the sound of the killing-cold blizzard wind through frost-rimed cattails on a frozen pond, escapes it and naught need be communicated in words: this is the singular spectral force that all lesser ghosts fear within the confines of this fence — a supernatural killer with no remorse and a raging need slaked by terrified death.
A leumur, with no pity or restraint, it seeks to feed on the especially-vibrant souls of those living who stand before it.
*
At least it isn't Wendigo. Wendigo would challenge any Master of the Mystic Arts, and neither of them are that. Albeit that spirit might learn the hard way what happens when two terrorized reality warpers run around a park, shouting demands over their shoulder.
"Run to him, if this doesn't work." In those words, no explanation may be necessary. Wanda meets Billy's gaze and down to the salt circle, taking a slow step out of it and leaving him and Tommy to stay in. It's technically an oval with room enough for the pair of them to squash together, had they any desire. And the leumur might, as a spirit, dislike the purified crystals as so many of its ilk do.
The glittering disk shaped around her fingers isn't flat, neither does it remain stationary. Constant rotational cycles keep the flower in flux, and the central sacred yantra of triangles splits along dimensional axes. That's fancy magic speak for it being attuned to ephemeral defenses, given she knows what she deals with. Her specialty may be the infernal, though a good many of those figures are completely ethereal. So it begins with a rattling winter hiss, and the witch levitating above the snow with another cantrip. Charms rattle at her belt. Terrified death means one thing.
"Tudor is the soldier
Who raises terror in the pagans!
Champion of Transia,
Beloved son of Wundagore!"
The ululating wail of a song ought to be enough for the spirit to mistake her emotions from trepidation, and like all good rabbits? She springs into action, darting away from it and right around the fence, moving with all the hard-bitten experience of someone who has fled for her life in riots and revolutions far too many times. She's not Tommy. She is not Pietro. But she knows how they might think, and she zigzags wildly, spinning around and switching speed even when her body is not happy with turning tail. Screw straight line runs! Sometimes terror turns your body to muck, sometimes your body agrees to follow. But brains overcome brawn. Fly, witch, fly.
*
Billy steps in closer to Tommy, and holds a hand up, calling forth bands of pure force to wrap around just outside of the circle, as he keeps his eyes focused on the gate— for the moment he's defending himself and his brother as Wanda chases the monster, but he's ready to switch his focus and use his will to keep anything in— or out— of the fenced area. His eyes widen as he watches the thing, and more as Wanda engages evasive maneuvers. For the moment he lets her do her thing and keeps the guard position, but electricity arcs along his right arm in case it suddenly becomes needed to get the zapping on.
*
The five spirits shift to defend themselves as necessary. One of the apprentices, the one with the bandaged head, shivers; he may have been an attempted meal before the Mystics and family showed.
"Whatever you do, do not let it touch you," the elder shaman says to all. The leumur shifts attention to the ghost and lets out another wailing shriek, this one seeming to communicate endless acidic disdain and promises of great harm. But the lure of the living souls is too much, too potent, too bright and glittering, and it turns back towards Wanda, Billy, and Tommy once more, actively seeking an opening while it hovers at a safe distance from them.
Fingers spread in a span and width with articulation akin to the legs of the giant bird-eating spiders of the southern climes. Every tip comes to a dagger-point and every tip is stained like the grave-shroud that contains it. These are the murder weapons of the leumur with which it stabs and shreds and sips at the life-force of the victims it seeks.
The rapid movement draws the predator's interest in a snap and it rushes after the Witch, drawn by basic instinct and the flashing of her Arts. It's a harrowing distance between them, for the leumur has no bones to prevent the fluid bannering of its flight behind her.
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 15
*
ROLL: Billy +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 43
*
Ephemeral spirits fly on tangents no human possesses, largely because physical barriers present no hindrance to beings of the great unknown. Nature's whims apply not to the leumur, only supernature. When it flits rapidly around the fenceline and seems to all but reappear behind the witch when she's midturn, grasping, greedy appendages extend to capture the vibrant life force promising such a fine meal compared to the meagre colonial ghosts and later Bronxmen and women interred in the forgotten fields. Those poisoned appendages seek her flesh and she wheels back, performing a nearly toppling backbend to avoid it the first time around from striking her head on. Wanda's best defense is not being in range, but when she is, she fights with all the savagery of that other nickname of hers.
Rakshasi. The hellcat. Her shield spits sparks when intercepting a near dodge, and it turns into a dazzling array of fireworks as she sweeps her foot out for a lower pivot infinitely lower than the fluid haunt might have expected. Once, she was over five feet tall, now she's two and half, and springing away with the levitational boost to avoid losing her footing on the snow. How very helpful, but it won't do anything when it arches and flows like some hellish banner over her and doesn't quite meet her head-on. But back, where the burning brand isn't, its claws flash out and she hisses a sibilant retort even as leather parts, spelled armour rises in wisps that burn scarlet, and her blood hits the snow in poppy-bright petals. It wouldn't be the first time, the gash through corset, leather coat, and skin opening tissues one rather not knows how deep. Preferably not puncturing lungs. That will absolutely hurt in the morning, if she makes it to morning.
Her reaction is spitting tacks in Transian, and relying on the most forceful of reactions: a concussive blast hurling it to the fence, possibly over. Eloquence the spell doesn't have; it packages pain, arrogance, mute determination, and laughing damnation all into the same wave and flings it out. Laughing is cheaper than dancing, anyways.
*
Oh no! The fury that enters Billy's features when he sees the creature strike Wanda— his mom— is intense, and for a moment reality *bends* around him as if he's just an inch away from somehow writing the thing completely out of existance. Of course, that doesn't happen: he doesn't know really how to do that whole reality warping thing yet. But when the thing flies past and slams into the iron bars, he lifts his electrified arm, and shouts, "Don't hurt my mom you freaking frack head!" And he flings his hand out, and burning plasma surges out of his body, a lightning bolt smashing powerfully into the creature. Iron bars might not be the most helpful thing in this situation to be held against, but still. Fiend, have lightning.
*
The knife-tipped stretch of the swiping leumur make contact and it screams in primal delight. A wound that goes skin-deep and deeper still, it freezes immediately afterwards and hovers in place to savor the adrenaline-laced blood from its claws. This makes it a beautiful target in its moment of unawareness and the blow strikes it with force. Flung away and into the wrought iron fencing, it hits it with tangible impact that bends in the barrier to the graveyard.
A confused squeal can be heard before the coruscating lightning bolt strikes true to its chest. Pinned against conductive metal, the pained shriek rises in pitch until even the guardian ghosts waiting in the shadows of the leafless oak tree cringe and cover their ears. The sound scatters any inquisitive spirits back to their graves because once the plasmic attack ceases, the leumur shakes itself as if removing excess water. Bits of charred robe waft in its wake as it rushes high into the air, about thirty feet up, and mantles wide and horrifying against the sky.
It can't decide which to go after: the one who bleeds or the one who maimed. Droplets of inky ecotplasmic fluid hit the snow far beneath it and hiss.
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 64
*
Even a wandering child, if any tot were silly enough to traipse through a snowy, empty park, would see Wanda wreathed in an aural glow that lifts her hair off her shoulders and matches the growing ox-blood light in her eyes. She hasn't time to entertain using her own life's essence to paint the symbols, but it already runs down the curve of her spine and dripped onto the ground. Short of rolling around on the icy drifts — effective, but not suitable given the tiny reprieve — she will have to make do with what she has. Her gloved hands plunge into the frozen layers and down further, reaching the cold soil. They're fingerless gloves for a reason, so she can establish the connection directly to her mother in that five-fold position rooting her to the earth. Shock lurks under the adrenaline high and she cannot afford to let herself fall into the dizzying lassitude, not yet. There's been worse, there's always worse.
Besides, pride is a family contagion.
"Strigoi…" Naming the leumur in her own terms makes it anathema, gives her magic something to zero in on with the questing hunger of a Transian hero, a hunter on the slopes of a dreaded mountain, a soldier lashing out. She sang to that spirit of her people, and it's no different here in the tribal war bands or the pagans. "O sa-ti destrame." The natural energy siphoned from the soil itself, launched from the grasses and the deep bedrock, granite and trickling water in the water table, comes soaring up in myriad ephemeral tendrils wrapping around the darkness. Some are blighted. Icicles and snow melt, but she opens herself as a conduit and feeds it all through to encourage nature to do what nature often does best — tears apart that which stands in its way, shredding being, devouring until it's inert and absorbed into the cycle to restore life again.
Or that's the goal, at any rate. She's sung the earth to wake. As for the sky and the fire?
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 78
*
Billy is quite sure that Wanda can handle herself, but he also knows something else as much as he knows anything at all: when you're facing a monster there is never, ever, ever such a thing as overdoing it. Lifting both hands, he holds them together as lightning dances between his fingers, and for a moment its like he holds a white sun in his hands, casting monsterous and huge shadows all around. And then he flings it out, and the ball of lightning flies crashing through the air and into the thing. There's never, ever, ever such a thing as too little obliteration when it comes to monsters (especially monsters that hurt MOM). Still, he's panting a little a moment later, "And that is how you— uh wait, is it done?"
*
The attacks are enough to fully engage the leumur's attention — fatally.
While pride is a contagion within the Witch's house, it brings lethal folly in wake of the supernatural creature's demise. Encircled by the obdurate life-bands of Mother Earth, too powerfully-charged to simply absorb, and subjected once more to scintillatingly-hot lightning, it's too much to withstand. A pitiful whimper escapes it before it detonates into a cloud of bonedust and tatters that drift away in a brisk winter wind.
Near to the tree, the two ghostly warriors let out ululating war cries of support while one apprentice joins in with a burst of youthful fervor. The other apprentice relegates himself to a single whoop. The elder shaman watches with a mute appreciation; one would at first think he's disapproving before they caught the glint in his dark eyes. Success, one way or another.
"Well done, warriors. You spill blood and fight in our stead. You honor us, and so we will honor you." The shaman lifts broad hands up before him and that same misty light pools within them before spiraling up in a graceful swirling. It rushes out and beyond the broken fence-line to settle overtop all with the near vicinity. It is a blessing and a healing to the spirit while not the flesh. Who better to counter any psychic wounds dealt by the leumur than the one who attempted the original exorcism? At this, he can succeed. "If you would please seal us in once more, we are in need of rest." One of the warriors mutters a disagreement, but quickly quiets with a side-look from the elder shaman.
*
"Billy," murmurs the witch, frowning lightly at the state of her coat and the apparent weakness wending its way through her bloodied back and wailing nerves. The easy answer to this rolls her flat on her back, letting the snow's cold seep deeply into her skin. The cold together with the compaction might slow things, for as much as she hates leaving any trace of herself there. Something to worry about later.
Sprawling in the snow is very much an after effect of the Pollack side of her heritage, surely, rather than those peoples of a warmer clime, or the burning hot rings of a hell realm. Staring up at the sky gives her reason to bleed rather freely, even if some dim memory speaks to elevate a wound above the heart. Difficult when it's there at the heart. And that may be the last thought to trace her mind for a while as the shock skims over her thoughts and bites in, letting her swoon away into it. Nothing to worry about there. Chilling. Really.
*
QUickly, Billy heads over to give Wanda a shoulder to lean upon, a look of intense worry on his features as he sees her injuries. He looks over to the spirits, blinking, "I'll be back to help seal you in. I promise." But he goes to Wands, reaches out to grab her arm, and he murmurs, "We need to get you home." There's a ripple, and something feels right about saying that: "We NEED to get you HOME." The ripple intensifies, and something in Billy… clicks. "We. Need. To. Get. You. Home." And the spell is complete, and something he did instinctively is for the first time done as a conscious act of will— for its the first time he ever really invoked a 'spell' at all. And reality rips around the pair of them, and then swallows them up, and instantaneously they're right outside the Sanctum and Billy is pounding on the door. "Steve! Quick, need bandages or you know something!" Maybe a hospital woulda been a better idea, but he wasn't thinking everything through completely.
*
Just wait until the wards hear Steve. They might spontaneously blow Billy off his feet and stamp 'STEPHEN' on his forehead in indelible red ink. Never dare that. There might even be a smirk ghosted over the witch's mouth at thinking about that, but noxious ephemeral claws in the back tends to derail one's sense of humour. Especially given her particular spell drain is heavy and habitually undernourished girls are always at odds with things like healing.
*
Pounding on the front doors of the Sanctum is one thing. Pounding accompanied by the muffled sounds of a name akin to his with the tones of a nervy teenager is another thing entirely, especially when the wards swirl around him to report what waits on the doorstep.
The pile of papers slides from the shop desk, some of the sheets even flipping off into the air as Strange pushes off with all the speed he can muster to burst out into the foyer. Throwing the front doors open wide, he looks at Billy with wide steel-blue eyes before taking in the wane Witch propped up on his shoulder.
"Billy! Wanda, « what in the seven hells?!»" Tibetan blurted out firstly is followed by him darting around to the Witch's unsupported side and hissing at the damage he can see across her back. Razor-sliced cuts, deep enough to bleed freely, and he feels his heart leap up into his throat. "Billy, quick, to that bench there, lay her out flat." The surgeon's stern command takes over, thank gods, in the face of his personal panic. Once she's sprawled across a bench, the very one he utilized during the Invasion of Grubs, the Sorcerer can get to work in closing those wounds.