Re: The Grand Battle II! [Round 3: Escheresque!]
12-26-2009, 09:39 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
Even as the dark column shrunk gradually back from its battle with the glittering beast, the rest of Gestalt's "body" was inching towards the combat. Gone, or at least not in evidence, were yo-yos and laser pointers and dolls and gloves, replaced by wickedly sharp knives and hooked garden tools and ticking, sinister clockwork devices, all crawling with a dark, singular purpose towards the harried Faceless.
The golem wasn't even pretending to maintain the eagle-shape anymore. What were one moment wings the next became vicious claws raking across the inscrutable darkness that was Vyrm'n, then shifted to legs skittering across the wall to avoid the weakening retaliation from a flailing spectral pseudopod. The Faceless was so preoccupied merely holding its own and dodging the ever-multiplying shards of glass and flying cutlery that she didn't even notice the hated brick until it was digging into her, tearing away at the pseudo-matter of her body. The black surface quivered, backed into a wall and pummeled from every angle, weapons appearing from apparently-nowhere faster than she could destroy them.
Even as omnipresent as Gestalt's pieces were, more pressing and grating to Vyrm'n was the psychic assault it seemed to be launching, or perhaps couldn't help but spew in the general direction of its target. Fragments of thought and what might pass for emotion in a poor light battered the schizoid mind of the harried Faceless, threatening to drown out its own reasoning and eternal metacognition.
...AND IF I...BUT THE NATURE OF...WITH OUR...CAN'T BEAR TO...THREATENS...YOU CAN'T SIMPLY...
Dozens of voices, all of them Gestalt, many with the telltale sneer of Samuel behind them, a few appearing to be arguing with each other, screamed across Vyrm'n's mind, and impressions and thoughts and memories poured in and around, like the million disjointed songs she'd heard in the midst of the spore cloud. Central and loudest, though, was an insistent chorus, shrieked loudly and rhythmically.
WHY? HOW?
And underneath it all, noticeable because of how quiet and comparatively lucid it was, a ceaseless litany of:
Who am I? What is life, and how do I relate to it? Can anything truly die?
Just as she was beginning to gain some ground, Vyrm'n realized Gestalt's movements weren't the usual smooth, precise ones she expected from it. A knife shook jerkily though the air and embedded itself in a wall after an easy dodge; the brick so enthusiastically tearing at her was occasionally immobile or sluggish; the glass swarm changed gradually and indistinctly from form to increasingly-nebulous form.
Samuel, watching from his cocoon and listening through and to Gestalt's mind, pursed his lips slightly. This was not really according to plan, and perhaps more worryingly, the golem's already-unusual consciousness appeared to be warping and splintering. He'd been experimenting with gathering karmic energy from the deaths of things thanks to some perspective he'd gained from his new partner, but was beginning to reason that this line of inquiry might have to be curtailed momentarily to reassert some control over the situation.
Vyrm'n slid to the left a bit, then a bit more. Her attacker seemed not to notice, content to slash and bite and tear at the wall behind her. She carefully and slowly began to extricate herself from the maelstrom of debris when all of the thoughts assailing her mind and all of the emotions ripping at her consciousness coalesced into a single, pointed blast of fear and fury, wailing THE ONLY WAY TO UNDERSTAND IS IF THERE IS NOTHING TO UNDERSTAND.
Even as the dark column shrunk gradually back from its battle with the glittering beast, the rest of Gestalt's "body" was inching towards the combat. Gone, or at least not in evidence, were yo-yos and laser pointers and dolls and gloves, replaced by wickedly sharp knives and hooked garden tools and ticking, sinister clockwork devices, all crawling with a dark, singular purpose towards the harried Faceless.
The golem wasn't even pretending to maintain the eagle-shape anymore. What were one moment wings the next became vicious claws raking across the inscrutable darkness that was Vyrm'n, then shifted to legs skittering across the wall to avoid the weakening retaliation from a flailing spectral pseudopod. The Faceless was so preoccupied merely holding its own and dodging the ever-multiplying shards of glass and flying cutlery that she didn't even notice the hated brick until it was digging into her, tearing away at the pseudo-matter of her body. The black surface quivered, backed into a wall and pummeled from every angle, weapons appearing from apparently-nowhere faster than she could destroy them.
Even as omnipresent as Gestalt's pieces were, more pressing and grating to Vyrm'n was the psychic assault it seemed to be launching, or perhaps couldn't help but spew in the general direction of its target. Fragments of thought and what might pass for emotion in a poor light battered the schizoid mind of the harried Faceless, threatening to drown out its own reasoning and eternal metacognition.
...AND IF I...BUT THE NATURE OF...WITH OUR...CAN'T BEAR TO...THREATENS...YOU CAN'T SIMPLY...
Dozens of voices, all of them Gestalt, many with the telltale sneer of Samuel behind them, a few appearing to be arguing with each other, screamed across Vyrm'n's mind, and impressions and thoughts and memories poured in and around, like the million disjointed songs she'd heard in the midst of the spore cloud. Central and loudest, though, was an insistent chorus, shrieked loudly and rhythmically.
WHY? HOW?
And underneath it all, noticeable because of how quiet and comparatively lucid it was, a ceaseless litany of:
Who am I? What is life, and how do I relate to it? Can anything truly die?
Just as she was beginning to gain some ground, Vyrm'n realized Gestalt's movements weren't the usual smooth, precise ones she expected from it. A knife shook jerkily though the air and embedded itself in a wall after an easy dodge; the brick so enthusiastically tearing at her was occasionally immobile or sluggish; the glass swarm changed gradually and indistinctly from form to increasingly-nebulous form.
Samuel, watching from his cocoon and listening through and to Gestalt's mind, pursed his lips slightly. This was not really according to plan, and perhaps more worryingly, the golem's already-unusual consciousness appeared to be warping and splintering. He'd been experimenting with gathering karmic energy from the deaths of things thanks to some perspective he'd gained from his new partner, but was beginning to reason that this line of inquiry might have to be curtailed momentarily to reassert some control over the situation.
Vyrm'n slid to the left a bit, then a bit more. Her attacker seemed not to notice, content to slash and bite and tear at the wall behind her. She carefully and slowly began to extricate herself from the maelstrom of debris when all of the thoughts assailing her mind and all of the emotions ripping at her consciousness coalesced into a single, pointed blast of fear and fury, wailing THE ONLY WAY TO UNDERSTAND IS IF THERE IS NOTHING TO UNDERSTAND.