Re: The Battle Royale S2 [Round 2: Prospect Creek]
08-14-2010, 03:10 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.
The smell was just as overwhelming as before. Jeremy had to fight back the familiar nausea and steel himself for the task at hand, muttering, "Stupid fucking jackass fairy-boy just had to get himself captured..."
They were on a walkway, raised above the main floor of the factory. As Jeremy turned to the Hatallan to say something, his eyes were caught by the torrents of meat rushing through clear tubes throughout the factory, and something clicked.
He froze, the color drained from his face. He felt sick, a sickness that went deeper than his stomach. A sickness that tore at his very humanity.
"... these... this... these were people..."
Jeremy looked at Geoff, who was avoiding making eye contact.
"The empty arcology, the... drone... and this! I should have seen it sooner... this," he gestured weakly, "is... an entire civilization. Murdered. Processed. I can't..." he fell silent for a moment, and looked back at the uncomfortable-looking detective. "Did you know?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"A while, now."
"Why didn't you tell me, man?"
"Well..." and here the Hatallan got almost... bashful, "... you're young, kid. I thought... maybe you wouldn't have to find out. I didn't want you to find out."
A small tinge of color returned to Jeremy's cheeks. Barely. While the young man was touched by Geoff's concern, such feelings felt out of place, given the horror facing them.
A buzzing sound broke the silence. Determination took over the rare, almost-soft expression on Geoff's face, and he clutched his crossbow. Jeremy considered for a moment, then:
"Geoff, when I brought us here I felt a bunch of doors around at different levels. I'm pretty sure there are other raised platforms all over this factory. I don't have any weapons and I'm complete shit at fighting, but... I want to help. And I think I know how."
Jeremy quickly outlined his plan as the buzzing grew louder.
It had been a while since Steinwaffe had to move as quickly as he was now. He could feel his stony joints protesting being awoken from their slumber.
The drone and its passengers had already entered the factory when Steinwaffe arrived; he glimpsed some of the others lallygagging around the field as he flew through an upper window.
Inside, the drone had seemed to falter a bit; whether this was due to the damage it had already sustained, or the crossbow bolts hitting it from seemingly every direction, as Jeremy and Geoff slipped from door to door on all of the raised walkways. Sirius was making no further progress in his struggles against his machanical captor, and the Photographer seemed to have... given up, for the most part.
Steinwaffe saw his chance. The drone was distracted, such as it could be, by Jeremy and Geoff's antics.
He swooped in and grappled the drone, which was immediately thrown off balance from the impact and addition of unexpected weight. As it flailed through the room, Steinwaffe's powerful stone arms beating and tearing its metal skin, the Photographer suddenly became unwedged from its claws, and fell to the ground, hitting his head quite hard.
The Photographer fell unconscious, and the Dream began to seep into the world around his prone form, though it seemed... different, than before. Where previously it had whispered softly, here it shuddered violently, with a sense of barely-contained chaos. The Dream itself appeared above the Photographer's limp body and looked around, recognizing the signs of a nightmare in progress. He snorted, sighing, "Wonderful," as he picked up the Photographer and looked for a safe place to stash him.
Sereno hadn't been having a good time through this competition. Like pretty much everyone, he'd freaked out something fierce during the initial kaleidescope-of-crazy round, though his "freak outs" were generally more destructive than others'.
So he'd tried to calm down this round. Resting in a grassy field, reading the book he'd picked up from that book guy... he was feeling better.
And then buzzing, damaged drone-thing carrying that angry angel and the weird black man-thing flew overhead, carrying them into the factory, followed by the gargoyle.
He really shouldn't interfere. Those idiots had their own things going on. But... well, he was going to be with them for a while. Perhaps he should help.
And so Sereno wandered into the factory, following the shouts.
Twitching haphazardly through the room was the drone, still holding Sirius quite securely. The beleaguered angel had given up casting spells and had settled for trying to avoid getting hit by Geoff's bolts; he became visibly more angry with every near-miss. After another bolt nearly punctured his wing, the ornery angel glared back at the door-hopping duo and shouted, "You IDIOTS! Watch where you're firing! Or at least get me free, first! Of all the incompetent..."
Jeremy and Geoff glanced at one another, and another evil grin passed over Jeremy's face as he hefted the boxes in his arm. Geoff narrowed his eyes in disapproval, and was about to speak before Jeremy turned to the door behind them, and opened it.
The drone had almost entirely lost all navigational abilities at this point, bombarded by Steinwaffe on all sides as it was. So it was no surprise that, at some point, it got close enough to one of the raised walkways as to put Sirius in arm's length of anyone whom happened to be standing on it. Like, say, Jeremy. The drone turned quickly, whipping Sirius around. The angel's eyes widened as he saw Jeremy standing on the catwalk, grin on face and pie in hand. Gripped as he was by the drone, Sirius couldn't avoid the inevitable. The drone continued to turn, and Sirius's face continued to move inexorably closer to the waiting, creamy, dastardly confection. Jeremy turned his hand, and the pie rose to a vertical position, its round, white filling turning from oval to circle to greet the angel.
Pastry hit scowl, and it was glorious.
Sirius continued through the confectionery confetti, Jeremy's hand liberally spreading what he could in the brief moment, as the angel's head was carried through the piesplosion.
Fury, unsurprisingly, overtook the angel as Jeremy pranced back through the nearest door to rejoin Geoff on an adjacent catwalk.
"And what exactly was the point of that?"
Jeremy looked annoyed. "Lay off, man. The guy's a dick and he deserved it. It's not like it hurt or anything, right?" he glanced at the peeved-looking Hatallan beside him.
Geoff grunted. "Whatever. We'll talk about it later. There are more important things at hand."
As if to highlight the detective's statement, a terrified Timothy Swales came screaming out of a stairwell on the ground floor, pursued by yet another angrily buzzing drone; this one, though, seemed undamaged.
Timothy was unhappy. He decided to let everyone know. "HOLY MOTHER OF CHRIST, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON SOMEONE HELP ME", he shouted, as the drone nearly tore off his coat, "DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT", he cried, as his gods remained unresponsive. "GET OUT OF MY FUCKIN' WAY", he yelled, as he barreled through a shocked Sereno. He ran out of the factory, too frantic in his escape to notice the drone had focused on easier pray.
Timothy slowed down in the field and turned to look behind him. Noticing no pursuit, he stopped, gasping for breath, hands on knees. He glanced around, and saw Ward sitting nearby, head buried in a book, pretending (quite terribly) to ignore Mr. Swales.
Timothy walked over. "I think you've got a good idea. Non-involvement. Mind if I borrow a bo-"
One of Ward's hands whipped out from nowhere, producing a rather boring-looking tome, featuring a procession of monkeys ending in a man. "Oreye... Origin... of... Spekies? Species? Well, better than nothing." Timothy settled down on the grass next to Ward, and tried his hardest to tune out the terrible sounds coming from within the factory.
Timothy's raucous exit had knocked Sereno on his behind, and brought him face-to-face with the drone. It paused, calculating briefly, as this new meatsac was in a position more conducive to harvesting. So, it harvested.
Not seconds after Timothy's hoarse screams had finished echoing through the room, Sereno's rose up to replace them. The drone hadn't made it more than a few feet before a terrible, grating wail coursed through the room. A small blur rocketed from the ground towards the airborne drone, and slammed straight through it. The blur continued towards the ceiling and stopped abruptly on contact, revealing a child-like figure, positioned unnaturally on the ceiling, staring down at the falling drone.
In the same moment, Steinwaffe finally dealt a severe blow to the other harvester. Sirius flew to freedom, immediately gunning towards Jeremy and his stupid pies. As the angel sped across the room, the attention of two entities immediately focused on him. Umbra, identifying the angel as a known threat, leapt off the ceiling towards the winged man. Steinwaffe, correctly deducing the infuriated angel's target, rushed forwards to interpose himself between attacker and innocent.
Like a horrifying, screaming bullet, Umbra launched itself at Sirius. The angel, ever battle-ready, had been keeping track of this new threat, and with a simple well-placed wing-beat batted the child-thing aside.
Umbra landed unceremoniously in a corner of the room. Right next to the Photographer's developing nightmare.
Steinwaffe was not quick enough to stop Sirius from reaching Jeremy. The angel paused a few feet from the catwalk Jeremy and Geoff had occupied, and yelled, "I'm ending this! Angel Sphere!" A now-familiar white light erupted into existence and raced towards Jeremy, who shouted "Oh hellfire! Geoff! Through here!" Acting quickly, Jeremy pulled open the door behind them and raced through, holding it open on the other side and crouching behind the wall.
The sphere flew through the link, exiting through a door behind Sirius. Directly behind Sirius, in fact. It grew in size and illuminated the entire room as it continued along its path. Confused at first, the angel quickly realized the trap he'd fell for as his shadow played on the wall, betraying the moving light behind him. He whirled, crying "Armor of Uriel!" and his armor took on a white glow, which the sphere seemed to dissipate in the face of.
The angel flew towards Jeremy's new location, fists balled, obviously intending to do away with magic and beat the smarmy doormage into a pulp with his bare hands.
He was interrupted, however, by Steinwaffe.
"Out of my way," the angel spat, "I am going to kill that pathetic, annoying little man."
"Nein, I think not."
"I don't care what you think. I'm going to tear that ridiculous person to shreds, the round is going to change, and we'll all be one step closer to getting away from this impossibly silly mess."
"Herr Angel, I do not vish to speak above my station, but... you do not seem very... angelic. Is not your duty to protect the innocent?"
"That boy is not innocent, he-"
"Tossed a pie in your face? Please, Herr Angel. I vill not allow you to hurt vun whom has hurt no vun."
Sirius glared. "Fine. I suppose it doesn't matter who I kill, just so long as someone dies. Good to see you've volunteered. Holy Lance!" A rod of lightning leapt into the angel's hand from nowhere, and was thrust towards the gargoyle. Steinwaffe brought up a wing to block it, but was knocked out of the air by the blow. Sirius descended to meet him. Steinwaffe stood, flexing his broken wing, remarking, "There seems to be a lot of ang-" his words broke off as Sirius attacked again, a shaft of light shooting from an outstretched palm, followed up by a charge straight for the overwhelmed gargoyle. Steinwaffe had no chance, in the end. Sirius spared no time for respites or speeches, and did not seem to believe in giving ground. His attacks were relentless, one brutal spell followed up immediately by another, never giving his opponent time to breath.
Cracks appeared all over Steinwaffe's body, sizeable chunks flying off almost every second, until Sirius had him backed up against a wall. Both of the gargoyle's wings were shattered stumps, his arms cracked and falling apart, his torso full of holes.
Other combatants, in this situation, may have stopped to have a few last words. But these two knew better. Steinwaffe had long ago realized how this would end, but he did not care. The angel approached him, eyes full of righteous fury, and spoke one final spell, savoring its shape in his mouth as he did.
"Smite."
A flash of light.
A pile of dust.
Steinwaffe was no more.
But as Sirius looked back towards his original prey, Steinwaffe's last act revealed itself: Jeremy and Geoff had escaped.
Almost.
"Holy christfuck, what is that thing?" an out-of-breath Jeremy gasped as another unearthly wail signaled the continued pursuit of Umbra.
"Maybe we should split up! It seems to have concentrated on you, for some reason, and I'm only slowing you do-"
"Yeah yeah good idea see ya!" Jeremy disappeared through another door, and Geoff, slightly nonplussed at Jeremy's willingness to abandon him, sped off down another corridor.
Umbra, predictably, followed Jeremy through his never-ending romp of constant door-hopping.
Until they ran through the Photographer's nightmare.
Jeremy knew something was wrong when he formed the link. He'd managed to shake Umbra, barely; he could hear the rushing-wind-scream of Umbra chasing down a corridor nearby. It was as if the creature could sense his location; even though he'd foiled its pursuit through the doors, it still knew how to get to him in a more conventional manner. So now, as he came across another door, he was certain he'd be able to put enough space between himself and the crazy screaming child-thing to at least earn a breather.
That is, until the door started screaming at him.
Jeremy's hand had just begun to twist the knob when a horribly disfigured mouth tore open the door's middle, topped by two bloodshot, melting eyes. The door moaned and out of shock, Jeremy tugged it open. That was when it screamed.
Blood poured from the door's edge, with sticky, bloody guts clinging to the frame while it opened. The door's scream took on a bloodcurdling tinge of terror and pain, as if it and the wall were a single being, and Jeremy had just ripped a portion of its body apart.
Jeremy stumbled backwards as the door swung open, robbed of speech and will to move. Where previously the meat factory had been horrifying, creepy, disgusting and nauseating, in the throes of the Photographer's full-blown nightmare it had become something much, much worse.
The tubes of meat had blossomed pus-spewing growths from their metal shells, and the meat flowing through them was replaced by freshly-skinned bodies, writhing in pain as they were forced along. They left bloodied handprints along the glass portions of the pipes, sometimes leaving bits of muscle and fat behind as their meat melted.
Looking up, a roiling ocean of blood greeted Jeremy. The churning ceiling occasionally dripped huge globules of glutinous, blood-covered fleshy things, which splattered on the floor.
Amidst all this, Jeremy could make out a figure on the other side of the room. A lanky man, curled up in a corner.
Sereno.
The sight, oddly enough, gave Jeremy enough willpower to find speech again. "If I can get to him..." he mused, "maybe I can get him to call off that... thing."
He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the trek across the room, as there was no other way to the huddled man. He began walking, talking himself through it all to distract himself from the literal nightmare around him. "All right, Jer, sure this whole thing just gets worse and worse. I mean, crazy god-bug-thing, insano-platform, scary godbitch, lots of angry people and now an I-don't-even-want-to-know. So what the he-ELLL," dodging a bloody hand grasping at his ankles, "are you supposed to do, Jer. Gods and fuckin'... shit. At least Geoff is kind of cute, in an alien kind of wa-aAAY CRAP," barely missing being hit by a gut-globule from the ceiling, "... hellfire. I hate this. I just wanna be drunk in some big hot tub with a lot of chicks as some pissed-off corporate goons chase me down 'cause I banged the boss's son. That'd be nice. Not this crazy shit."
His personal diatribe on all things battle-y continued much in this manner as he navigated the squirming, moaning meat factory floor to where Sereno rocked back and forth.
"Heeeyyy... buddy. You uh... all right there?"
Jeremy's voice brought Sereno partways back to reality. He looked up, grimacing at his headache.
"What do you want, boy?"
"Man what is up with everyone callin' me 'kid' or 'boy' or whatever? I swear I'm probably older than some of you dudes. Anyway yeah uh, you're the guy that crazy child-thing belongs to, right?"
Sereno nodded grudgingly.
"Well you think you could call it off or... something? It's chasing me and it's... uh... scary," Jeremy looked around at the nightmare-fuel around him, adding "... ish".
"No."
"Uh... what? Come on man it's gonna-"
"Kill you? Yes. I know. It'll kill all of you. And you all deserve it! You're all MONSTERS!"
Sereno's voice took on a frantic timbre as he continued to talk, and he stood up, lunging towards Jeremy with the final word, tackling him and bringing him to the ground.
The two scuffled rather haphazardly in the bloody, flesh-soft floor, until Jeremy finally managed to slip away.
Sereno stood, clutching his head. "Get BACK here, boy! I will kill you wall and the headaches will stop and Umbra will go away... but first you all must DIE!"
"Oh what the shit..." Jeremy ran. Sereno chased.
They went back through the wailing door; though Jeremy had just enough time to close and reopen it, establishing a new link in the process. The two found themselves in the huge tree-room Jeremy and Geoff had come across all those minutes ago.
Jeremy risked a glance back at his pursuant, and to his horror, discovered that the Nightmare had seeped through the link, growing and corrupting the surrounding treescape. With a high-pitched "fffuuuuuuuck!" Jeremy ran towards the nearest door, reaching out to create another link...
... and quickly snatching his hand back when the handle tried to bite him. Muttering <font size="1">"What the shit..." he turned to see Sereno pounding towards him. More "shit shit shit!" as he rammed open the door, finding himself in another nightmare-saturated room of the meat factory, up on another raised platform, above a gigantic grinding machine. The links! he realized. This crazy reality-warping stuff has leaked into the links!.
Sereno's death cry brought Jeremy back, and he rushed to close the snapping portal before the raging Italian could make it through.
He was not quick enough.
Sereno's hand snaked through the opening, followed by his body. Jeremy found himself gasping for breath as both hands tightened on his neck, squeezing the life out of him. Sereno pushed forward, leaning Jeremy backwards over the railing. The poor doormage was all to aware of the possible ways he could die right now; choked to death by a madman, or, if Sereno was feeling particularly nasty, tossed into the grinder to add his meat to the factory.
Jeremy scrabbled futilely against Sereno's arms. The Italian was too busy gloating to notice the railing take on a more fleshy texture, and begin to bend. Jeremy, however, felt it change on his back, and he tried to mask its giving way by struggling harder. If he timed this right, perhaps...</font>
"You'll be the first! If I get rid of you... yes, maybe Umbra will stop for a bit! Then I can have some..."
The railing snapped, gushing blood everywhere. Jeremy reached out with one hand and grabbed the sturdiest remaining portion, swinging his body around as Sereno fell forwards. The madman's grasp loosened, and his eyes widened as he realized what had happened. Jeremy clung to the railing as Sereno swung around, and fell.
"...peace"
Jeremy stared into Sereno's eyes right up until his head was crushed in the grinder, spewing brains and blood everywhere.
Jeremy was alive. Sereno was not.
They were on a walkway, raised above the main floor of the factory. As Jeremy turned to the Hatallan to say something, his eyes were caught by the torrents of meat rushing through clear tubes throughout the factory, and something clicked.
He froze, the color drained from his face. He felt sick, a sickness that went deeper than his stomach. A sickness that tore at his very humanity.
"... these... this... these were people..."
Jeremy looked at Geoff, who was avoiding making eye contact.
"The empty arcology, the... drone... and this! I should have seen it sooner... this," he gestured weakly, "is... an entire civilization. Murdered. Processed. I can't..." he fell silent for a moment, and looked back at the uncomfortable-looking detective. "Did you know?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"A while, now."
"Why didn't you tell me, man?"
"Well..." and here the Hatallan got almost... bashful, "... you're young, kid. I thought... maybe you wouldn't have to find out. I didn't want you to find out."
A small tinge of color returned to Jeremy's cheeks. Barely. While the young man was touched by Geoff's concern, such feelings felt out of place, given the horror facing them.
A buzzing sound broke the silence. Determination took over the rare, almost-soft expression on Geoff's face, and he clutched his crossbow. Jeremy considered for a moment, then:
"Geoff, when I brought us here I felt a bunch of doors around at different levels. I'm pretty sure there are other raised platforms all over this factory. I don't have any weapons and I'm complete shit at fighting, but... I want to help. And I think I know how."
Jeremy quickly outlined his plan as the buzzing grew louder.
It had been a while since Steinwaffe had to move as quickly as he was now. He could feel his stony joints protesting being awoken from their slumber.
The drone and its passengers had already entered the factory when Steinwaffe arrived; he glimpsed some of the others lallygagging around the field as he flew through an upper window.
Inside, the drone had seemed to falter a bit; whether this was due to the damage it had already sustained, or the crossbow bolts hitting it from seemingly every direction, as Jeremy and Geoff slipped from door to door on all of the raised walkways. Sirius was making no further progress in his struggles against his machanical captor, and the Photographer seemed to have... given up, for the most part.
Steinwaffe saw his chance. The drone was distracted, such as it could be, by Jeremy and Geoff's antics.
He swooped in and grappled the drone, which was immediately thrown off balance from the impact and addition of unexpected weight. As it flailed through the room, Steinwaffe's powerful stone arms beating and tearing its metal skin, the Photographer suddenly became unwedged from its claws, and fell to the ground, hitting his head quite hard.
The Photographer fell unconscious, and the Dream began to seep into the world around his prone form, though it seemed... different, than before. Where previously it had whispered softly, here it shuddered violently, with a sense of barely-contained chaos. The Dream itself appeared above the Photographer's limp body and looked around, recognizing the signs of a nightmare in progress. He snorted, sighing, "Wonderful," as he picked up the Photographer and looked for a safe place to stash him.
Sereno hadn't been having a good time through this competition. Like pretty much everyone, he'd freaked out something fierce during the initial kaleidescope-of-crazy round, though his "freak outs" were generally more destructive than others'.
So he'd tried to calm down this round. Resting in a grassy field, reading the book he'd picked up from that book guy... he was feeling better.
And then buzzing, damaged drone-thing carrying that angry angel and the weird black man-thing flew overhead, carrying them into the factory, followed by the gargoyle.
He really shouldn't interfere. Those idiots had their own things going on. But... well, he was going to be with them for a while. Perhaps he should help.
And so Sereno wandered into the factory, following the shouts.
Twitching haphazardly through the room was the drone, still holding Sirius quite securely. The beleaguered angel had given up casting spells and had settled for trying to avoid getting hit by Geoff's bolts; he became visibly more angry with every near-miss. After another bolt nearly punctured his wing, the ornery angel glared back at the door-hopping duo and shouted, "You IDIOTS! Watch where you're firing! Or at least get me free, first! Of all the incompetent..."
Jeremy and Geoff glanced at one another, and another evil grin passed over Jeremy's face as he hefted the boxes in his arm. Geoff narrowed his eyes in disapproval, and was about to speak before Jeremy turned to the door behind them, and opened it.
The drone had almost entirely lost all navigational abilities at this point, bombarded by Steinwaffe on all sides as it was. So it was no surprise that, at some point, it got close enough to one of the raised walkways as to put Sirius in arm's length of anyone whom happened to be standing on it. Like, say, Jeremy. The drone turned quickly, whipping Sirius around. The angel's eyes widened as he saw Jeremy standing on the catwalk, grin on face and pie in hand. Gripped as he was by the drone, Sirius couldn't avoid the inevitable. The drone continued to turn, and Sirius's face continued to move inexorably closer to the waiting, creamy, dastardly confection. Jeremy turned his hand, and the pie rose to a vertical position, its round, white filling turning from oval to circle to greet the angel.
Pastry hit scowl, and it was glorious.
Sirius continued through the confectionery confetti, Jeremy's hand liberally spreading what he could in the brief moment, as the angel's head was carried through the piesplosion.
Fury, unsurprisingly, overtook the angel as Jeremy pranced back through the nearest door to rejoin Geoff on an adjacent catwalk.
"And what exactly was the point of that?"
Jeremy looked annoyed. "Lay off, man. The guy's a dick and he deserved it. It's not like it hurt or anything, right?" he glanced at the peeved-looking Hatallan beside him.
Geoff grunted. "Whatever. We'll talk about it later. There are more important things at hand."
As if to highlight the detective's statement, a terrified Timothy Swales came screaming out of a stairwell on the ground floor, pursued by yet another angrily buzzing drone; this one, though, seemed undamaged.
Timothy was unhappy. He decided to let everyone know. "HOLY MOTHER OF CHRIST, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON SOMEONE HELP ME", he shouted, as the drone nearly tore off his coat, "DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT", he cried, as his gods remained unresponsive. "GET OUT OF MY FUCKIN' WAY", he yelled, as he barreled through a shocked Sereno. He ran out of the factory, too frantic in his escape to notice the drone had focused on easier pray.
Timothy slowed down in the field and turned to look behind him. Noticing no pursuit, he stopped, gasping for breath, hands on knees. He glanced around, and saw Ward sitting nearby, head buried in a book, pretending (quite terribly) to ignore Mr. Swales.
Timothy walked over. "I think you've got a good idea. Non-involvement. Mind if I borrow a bo-"
One of Ward's hands whipped out from nowhere, producing a rather boring-looking tome, featuring a procession of monkeys ending in a man. "Oreye... Origin... of... Spekies? Species? Well, better than nothing." Timothy settled down on the grass next to Ward, and tried his hardest to tune out the terrible sounds coming from within the factory.
Timothy's raucous exit had knocked Sereno on his behind, and brought him face-to-face with the drone. It paused, calculating briefly, as this new meatsac was in a position more conducive to harvesting. So, it harvested.
Not seconds after Timothy's hoarse screams had finished echoing through the room, Sereno's rose up to replace them. The drone hadn't made it more than a few feet before a terrible, grating wail coursed through the room. A small blur rocketed from the ground towards the airborne drone, and slammed straight through it. The blur continued towards the ceiling and stopped abruptly on contact, revealing a child-like figure, positioned unnaturally on the ceiling, staring down at the falling drone.
In the same moment, Steinwaffe finally dealt a severe blow to the other harvester. Sirius flew to freedom, immediately gunning towards Jeremy and his stupid pies. As the angel sped across the room, the attention of two entities immediately focused on him. Umbra, identifying the angel as a known threat, leapt off the ceiling towards the winged man. Steinwaffe, correctly deducing the infuriated angel's target, rushed forwards to interpose himself between attacker and innocent.
Like a horrifying, screaming bullet, Umbra launched itself at Sirius. The angel, ever battle-ready, had been keeping track of this new threat, and with a simple well-placed wing-beat batted the child-thing aside.
Umbra landed unceremoniously in a corner of the room. Right next to the Photographer's developing nightmare.
Steinwaffe was not quick enough to stop Sirius from reaching Jeremy. The angel paused a few feet from the catwalk Jeremy and Geoff had occupied, and yelled, "I'm ending this! Angel Sphere!" A now-familiar white light erupted into existence and raced towards Jeremy, who shouted "Oh hellfire! Geoff! Through here!" Acting quickly, Jeremy pulled open the door behind them and raced through, holding it open on the other side and crouching behind the wall.
The sphere flew through the link, exiting through a door behind Sirius. Directly behind Sirius, in fact. It grew in size and illuminated the entire room as it continued along its path. Confused at first, the angel quickly realized the trap he'd fell for as his shadow played on the wall, betraying the moving light behind him. He whirled, crying "Armor of Uriel!" and his armor took on a white glow, which the sphere seemed to dissipate in the face of.
The angel flew towards Jeremy's new location, fists balled, obviously intending to do away with magic and beat the smarmy doormage into a pulp with his bare hands.
He was interrupted, however, by Steinwaffe.
"Out of my way," the angel spat, "I am going to kill that pathetic, annoying little man."
"Nein, I think not."
"I don't care what you think. I'm going to tear that ridiculous person to shreds, the round is going to change, and we'll all be one step closer to getting away from this impossibly silly mess."
"Herr Angel, I do not vish to speak above my station, but... you do not seem very... angelic. Is not your duty to protect the innocent?"
"That boy is not innocent, he-"
"Tossed a pie in your face? Please, Herr Angel. I vill not allow you to hurt vun whom has hurt no vun."
Sirius glared. "Fine. I suppose it doesn't matter who I kill, just so long as someone dies. Good to see you've volunteered. Holy Lance!" A rod of lightning leapt into the angel's hand from nowhere, and was thrust towards the gargoyle. Steinwaffe brought up a wing to block it, but was knocked out of the air by the blow. Sirius descended to meet him. Steinwaffe stood, flexing his broken wing, remarking, "There seems to be a lot of ang-" his words broke off as Sirius attacked again, a shaft of light shooting from an outstretched palm, followed up by a charge straight for the overwhelmed gargoyle. Steinwaffe had no chance, in the end. Sirius spared no time for respites or speeches, and did not seem to believe in giving ground. His attacks were relentless, one brutal spell followed up immediately by another, never giving his opponent time to breath.
Cracks appeared all over Steinwaffe's body, sizeable chunks flying off almost every second, until Sirius had him backed up against a wall. Both of the gargoyle's wings were shattered stumps, his arms cracked and falling apart, his torso full of holes.
Other combatants, in this situation, may have stopped to have a few last words. But these two knew better. Steinwaffe had long ago realized how this would end, but he did not care. The angel approached him, eyes full of righteous fury, and spoke one final spell, savoring its shape in his mouth as he did.
"Smite."
A flash of light.
A pile of dust.
Steinwaffe was no more.
But as Sirius looked back towards his original prey, Steinwaffe's last act revealed itself: Jeremy and Geoff had escaped.
Almost.
"Holy christfuck, what is that thing?" an out-of-breath Jeremy gasped as another unearthly wail signaled the continued pursuit of Umbra.
"Maybe we should split up! It seems to have concentrated on you, for some reason, and I'm only slowing you do-"
"Yeah yeah good idea see ya!" Jeremy disappeared through another door, and Geoff, slightly nonplussed at Jeremy's willingness to abandon him, sped off down another corridor.
Umbra, predictably, followed Jeremy through his never-ending romp of constant door-hopping.
Until they ran through the Photographer's nightmare.
Jeremy knew something was wrong when he formed the link. He'd managed to shake Umbra, barely; he could hear the rushing-wind-scream of Umbra chasing down a corridor nearby. It was as if the creature could sense his location; even though he'd foiled its pursuit through the doors, it still knew how to get to him in a more conventional manner. So now, as he came across another door, he was certain he'd be able to put enough space between himself and the crazy screaming child-thing to at least earn a breather.
That is, until the door started screaming at him.
Jeremy's hand had just begun to twist the knob when a horribly disfigured mouth tore open the door's middle, topped by two bloodshot, melting eyes. The door moaned and out of shock, Jeremy tugged it open. That was when it screamed.
Blood poured from the door's edge, with sticky, bloody guts clinging to the frame while it opened. The door's scream took on a bloodcurdling tinge of terror and pain, as if it and the wall were a single being, and Jeremy had just ripped a portion of its body apart.
Jeremy stumbled backwards as the door swung open, robbed of speech and will to move. Where previously the meat factory had been horrifying, creepy, disgusting and nauseating, in the throes of the Photographer's full-blown nightmare it had become something much, much worse.
The tubes of meat had blossomed pus-spewing growths from their metal shells, and the meat flowing through them was replaced by freshly-skinned bodies, writhing in pain as they were forced along. They left bloodied handprints along the glass portions of the pipes, sometimes leaving bits of muscle and fat behind as their meat melted.
Looking up, a roiling ocean of blood greeted Jeremy. The churning ceiling occasionally dripped huge globules of glutinous, blood-covered fleshy things, which splattered on the floor.
Amidst all this, Jeremy could make out a figure on the other side of the room. A lanky man, curled up in a corner.
Sereno.
The sight, oddly enough, gave Jeremy enough willpower to find speech again. "If I can get to him..." he mused, "maybe I can get him to call off that... thing."
He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the trek across the room, as there was no other way to the huddled man. He began walking, talking himself through it all to distract himself from the literal nightmare around him. "All right, Jer, sure this whole thing just gets worse and worse. I mean, crazy god-bug-thing, insano-platform, scary godbitch, lots of angry people and now an I-don't-even-want-to-know. So what the he-ELLL," dodging a bloody hand grasping at his ankles, "are you supposed to do, Jer. Gods and fuckin'... shit. At least Geoff is kind of cute, in an alien kind of wa-aAAY CRAP," barely missing being hit by a gut-globule from the ceiling, "... hellfire. I hate this. I just wanna be drunk in some big hot tub with a lot of chicks as some pissed-off corporate goons chase me down 'cause I banged the boss's son. That'd be nice. Not this crazy shit."
His personal diatribe on all things battle-y continued much in this manner as he navigated the squirming, moaning meat factory floor to where Sereno rocked back and forth.
"Heeeyyy... buddy. You uh... all right there?"
Jeremy's voice brought Sereno partways back to reality. He looked up, grimacing at his headache.
"What do you want, boy?"
"Man what is up with everyone callin' me 'kid' or 'boy' or whatever? I swear I'm probably older than some of you dudes. Anyway yeah uh, you're the guy that crazy child-thing belongs to, right?"
Sereno nodded grudgingly.
"Well you think you could call it off or... something? It's chasing me and it's... uh... scary," Jeremy looked around at the nightmare-fuel around him, adding "... ish".
"No."
"Uh... what? Come on man it's gonna-"
"Kill you? Yes. I know. It'll kill all of you. And you all deserve it! You're all MONSTERS!"
Sereno's voice took on a frantic timbre as he continued to talk, and he stood up, lunging towards Jeremy with the final word, tackling him and bringing him to the ground.
The two scuffled rather haphazardly in the bloody, flesh-soft floor, until Jeremy finally managed to slip away.
Sereno stood, clutching his head. "Get BACK here, boy! I will kill you wall and the headaches will stop and Umbra will go away... but first you all must DIE!"
"Oh what the shit..." Jeremy ran. Sereno chased.
They went back through the wailing door; though Jeremy had just enough time to close and reopen it, establishing a new link in the process. The two found themselves in the huge tree-room Jeremy and Geoff had come across all those minutes ago.
Jeremy risked a glance back at his pursuant, and to his horror, discovered that the Nightmare had seeped through the link, growing and corrupting the surrounding treescape. With a high-pitched "fffuuuuuuuck!" Jeremy ran towards the nearest door, reaching out to create another link...
... and quickly snatching his hand back when the handle tried to bite him. Muttering <font size="1">"What the shit..." he turned to see Sereno pounding towards him. More "shit shit shit!" as he rammed open the door, finding himself in another nightmare-saturated room of the meat factory, up on another raised platform, above a gigantic grinding machine. The links! he realized. This crazy reality-warping stuff has leaked into the links!.
Sereno's death cry brought Jeremy back, and he rushed to close the snapping portal before the raging Italian could make it through.
He was not quick enough.
Sereno's hand snaked through the opening, followed by his body. Jeremy found himself gasping for breath as both hands tightened on his neck, squeezing the life out of him. Sereno pushed forward, leaning Jeremy backwards over the railing. The poor doormage was all to aware of the possible ways he could die right now; choked to death by a madman, or, if Sereno was feeling particularly nasty, tossed into the grinder to add his meat to the factory.
Jeremy scrabbled futilely against Sereno's arms. The Italian was too busy gloating to notice the railing take on a more fleshy texture, and begin to bend. Jeremy, however, felt it change on his back, and he tried to mask its giving way by struggling harder. If he timed this right, perhaps...</font>
"You'll be the first! If I get rid of you... yes, maybe Umbra will stop for a bit! Then I can have some..."
The railing snapped, gushing blood everywhere. Jeremy reached out with one hand and grabbed the sturdiest remaining portion, swinging his body around as Sereno fell forwards. The madman's grasp loosened, and his eyes widened as he realized what had happened. Jeremy clung to the railing as Sereno swung around, and fell.
"...peace"
Jeremy stared into Sereno's eyes right up until his head was crushed in the grinder, spewing brains and blood everywhere.
Jeremy was alive. Sereno was not.