Re: The Grand Battle II! [Final Round: Dimensional Speakeasy]
09-21-2011, 03:11 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
In contrast to the door's elegant swing and perfectly-smooth surface, the figure that stumbled out of it was decidedly unimpressive. Paris's smoky black form stood uncertainly in the atrium as his entry faded behind him, a mundane and unimpressive figure against the chaotic tableau of Frank's battle against the dwindling homunculi, Jessamine's assault on Vyrm'n, and the aftermath of Lucian's near-betrayal. A glassy head-analogue turned towards the new arrival, and Jessamine's eerie voice keened out "Excellent timing, for once. These things are threatening the order of the speakeasy itself. Help me settle everything; the boss's game is just going to have to take a backseat."
Paris took a step backwards, then another; his hand came up as though to rub his masked cheek, then hesitated as he thought better of the unconscious gesture. As Jessamine dodged another jinking lunge from Vyrm'n, the nervous glassblower shook his head slowly and backed up another few steps. The proprietress's shriek of rage was a palpable force as well as an ear-splitting noise, although Paris himself was the only one really affected by the sound. "What?! You worthless little thrall, grab those boxes or–"
Jessamine's raving was interrupted by another oddly-determined attack from the wheeling Faceless above her; Paris continued moving backwards, charred hands shivering with fear, head still shaking as though the mere act of dissent would kill him as soon as he stopped. Eventually, he backed into a wall; with nowhere else to go and no more reason to wear his mark of subservience, he slowly reached up to his rose-emblazoned hood. It smoked gently as he tugged it off, then hurtled sideways as it was unceremoniously discarded. The mask met the wall and undramatically fell to the floor, unheeded by all. Paris's lidless eyes stared out at the world for the first time in longer than he cared to remember, a terrified grin cracking papery skin and setting sores to weeping. "You broke me, Jessamine."
His courage bolstered by his erstwhile mistress's inability to retaliate while dealing with Vyrm'n, Paris took a hesitant step forward and continued "You lied to me, you tricked me, and you broke me. You know what you did, what you forced me to do, what it was like. And now I'm going to help break you." He bent down, grabbing a crustaceous chunk of flesh that had been flung across the room during Frank's fight with some homunculus or other; it burst into flame after a moment, and he hurled it towards the glassy tyrant, more for effect than out of any belief that it would be effectual. "You are going to burn."
It was at about that time that Frank turned back to face the atrium and the people in it; her limbs were still extended, her clothes and imitation skin were smeared with all manner of undefinable gore, and she'd been struck by bullets in several places, but there was no hint of commotion behind her and her face was twisted into an expression of nearly manic glee. "I knew we wasn't gonna see this finished withoutcha dead and gone, Jessie, but I nevah figyahed even ya monkey'd turn on ya. Serves ya right, you old bitch."
Jessamine was near the center of the atrium, hemmed in on all sides by hostile beings that, while clearly beneath her, made it difficult to pick any one of them off. There certainly wasn't anywhere to go that would give her a a better position; Frank very firmly guarded the exit, and there was nowhere to go through the double doors, even (or perhaps especially) for someone like Jessamine. Gestalt was huddling next to Frank; it wasn't overtly threatening, but for some reason even approaching the quivering little spirit would have made Jessamine's eyes water if she'd had any. Attacking the schrotgolem just the once had been painful enough, and it worried her that she didn't know why. Fortunately, it was still basically harmless, making no move to attack or aid the others, simply clutching its corporeal parts to itself and doing the spiritual equivalent of rocking back and forth on the balls of its feet. Paris, the little worm, was hesitantly advancing on her, but for all his rage and dramatics he'd be able to do little to her but cripple her shell a little bit; if it weren't for the dogged attention of the irascible faceless, she'd have shown him what 'broken' really meant by now.
No, the pair that were really worth worrying about were Frank and Vyrm'n; the former certainly didn't have power or abilities anywhere near on Jessamine's own level, but her knowledge could make her dangerous and, more importantly, she would probably prove an excellent distraction from the true threat that was the Entropic shard, or even reverse the roles be able to take lethal advantage of Jessamine focusing on Vyrm'n. There was a brief stalemate while everyone present waited for someone else to make a move; the lull was filled by the proprietress's voice, which hissed "Paris, you have one more chance to destroy those crates, then give me your key, and I won't make the rest of your miserable life so wretched that you'll pray that I get bored and give you to the Tormentor."
A sneer further twisted the heat-ravaged lump of flesh that Paris was forced to call a face, and he wheezed in a way that might have been a laugh. "You're too late. Threaten all you want, but Vyrm'n has the key now. Good luck getting it back." He cracked his knuckles in a way that was probably supposed to be threatening. "Not that you'll be around long enough for it to matter."
Jessamine probably would have laughed here had she been a more organic being, but as it was a palpable aura of sneeringness radiated from her glass hull. She didn't bother to respond with any kind of taunt or statement of her confidence; from her perspective, it would have been like assuring the beetle that just bumped into her that she was going to squash it. There was no point.
Instead she simply lunged, unnatural speed propelling her across the room towards Paris, whose human reaction times barely afforded him the chance to raise his hands. Fortunately for him, there were others in the room with speed and abilities that rivaled Jessamine's, at least in some respects. Anyone with perception that could follow the proprietress's movements would have similarly been able to see Vyrm'n billow and streak towards her or notice one of Frank's limbs extending and whipping upwards. Jessamine herself saw, and had predicted, Vyrm'n's unsubtle attack; she sidestepped nimbly, still on course for Paris, needly legs and glass barbs raised aggressively.
However, Jessamine hadn't been the only one with the foresight to predict how the near-mindless Vyrm'n would react; Frank's bladed arm had been whipping through the air towards the proprietress's new path before she even set herself on it. Jessamine barely had time to become aware of the attack before avoiding it too, and her less-than-elegant dodge sent her sprawling in a tangled mass of glass and smoky blue. Frank's swing continued, her other limb moving in in a pincer attack, but Jessamine righted herself faster than Frank had expected was possible and lashed out; wood and metal splinters flew through the air as the Grandmasters' servants collided, Jessamine exuding an air of smug superiority as Frank's face twisted into a hateful grimace.
This momentary tableau, however, faded almost immediately: Vyrm'n, still moving through the air with the disorganized elegance of something that had no time for trivialities like gravity, smashed into Jessamine's silicate shell. There was a very faint material thud, but it was drowned out by the psychic presence of words read in the Diarist's voice and a soundless shriek of anguish from Gestalt. Vyrm'n was rebuffed, spiraling through the air in whatever passed for confusion inside the mindless mind of a lost Entropic, while Jessamine recoiled from the touch of the abyss and the sheer force of Vyrm'n's assault. Though Jessamine was quickly losing extremities and the entirety of her hull was showing cracks and Frank had just had both of her arms rudely shorn off, Gestalt was the single being most visibly affected by the bout; despite having moved little and participated less, the little schrotgolem was quivering in terror and agony, its condition clearly exacerbated every time Vyrm'n collided with Jessamine.
As the glass chilopod that housed the proprietress stumbled backwards from the Entropic's lunge, Paris crept along the wall; while Jessamine's attention was on the wheeling blackness above and the reconstituting puppet before her, he moved as silently as he could to her side. Frank spotted his gambit and lashed out with broken wires and blades simply to keep Jessamine occupied; the proprietress sidestepped neatly, leaving Frank clawing at nothing but wood paneling, and drew herself up as though to sneer. Her taunt was cut off before it even began, though, as Paris took the opportunity to send his hand plowing through the beautiful sculpture he had so recently created.
Jessamine screamed. The floor sizzled as drops of superheated glass rained down on it. Several of Jessamine's legs clattered and tinkled as they left her body and smashed on the wood below. Glass groaned and creaked as the proprietress retaliated, flailing with her rear segments until they struck Paris and sent him flying. There were several very organic cracks and pops as Paris met the wall, and a soft thud as he reached the floor. Frank gasped.
There were a few small wisps of the blue fog that occupied Paris's creations evaporating into the air, but it was clear that Jessamine's essence wouldn't be destroyed by a mere hull breach. The now-very-unbalanced shell tottered slightly but stayed standing, fury radiating off it hotter than the glowing glass that peppered the floor around it.
"I've been careless." The words weren't bellowed or shrieked, but rather hissed out of the air like the breeze that heralded a biblically-proportioned storm. "But you troublemakers will find that I don't make the same mistake twice. And you will find..."
Nearby, Paris was clawing his way back up into a sitting position, his touch setting small fires across the wallpaper and his legs buckling as he tried to hold his weight on them. "That I've been in charge of this place since before any of you existed for a reason!"
As her sentence ended, Jessamine's voice finally did reach a furious scream. With her characteristic blinding speed, apparently unfettered by the damage her shell had accrued, she hurtled towards Paris; Vyrm'n sped towards her once again, but her rear legs came up and batted her away, sending the faceless careening into one of the Observer's display cases and eliciting the sound of two realities grinding against one another from Gestalt. The schrotgolem cried out again, actual tangible pain flooding the body it didn't have, confused impressions of two scenes overlaying themselves on one another in its mind and the droning of indecipherable words filling its perception.
Frank waffled for only fractions of fractions of seconds, wondering whether to try to intervene to save Paris or to take the opportunity to continue repairing herself, but even that microscopic slice of time was too much. Before she could raise her shattered arms, Jessamine was upon her erstwhile servant, wicked glass spikes nailing him in place; before the blood from his new wounds could even reach the floor, legs had come up and speared his heart, his lungs, and his brain. Before the light of life had faded from his lashless eyes, she twisted and sent him skidding across the floor. The lump of flesh that would only be Paris for the space of a few more gasping breaths came to a stop at the feet of Gestalt's boxes.
Gestalt dragged itself from its tortured reverie as Paris's lifeless head came to rest. It blearily took in the shattered body and the blood still dripping from Jessamine's claws; it watched as Vyrm'n gathered herself up and began circling around the dome above, a wheeling streak of night with no personality or plan; it lazily followed the shrapnel that was once part of Frank's arms as it gathered itself towards her.
Its so-recently acquired speaker crackled to life, smooth synthesized voice now emulating haggardness and barely-concealed agony. "He's dead."
Jessamine turned slowly, watching her three surviving opponents carefully and gingerly getting used to movement with so many of her legs removed. "Of course he's dead. You're all going to die. You knew you were going to die." She scoffed, advancing slowly, new gait forcing her to sway hypnotically. "Insignificance always breeds such illusions of grandeur."
Gestalt, apparently ignoring her, spoke up before her last sentence even finished. "They're all dead."
It was fairly clear it was referring to the six contestants that had passed before it: not only was there no-one else it could reasonably be referring to, but the cases surrounding their remains had begun shaking. By this point, Jessamine's attention was clearly focused on Gestalt; her forelegs were raised as though poised to strike, but she stayed near-motionless, waiting for someone else to make the first move so she could take advantage of their attack. Frank took the time to continue allowing her limbs to re-weave themselves, matter leaping from where it sat or coming into existence as she directed it. Vyrm'n spun above it all, a ball of instincts without a mind to guide it.
"This isn't right."
The scene was still again as Gestalt's borrowed voice quieted, save for the continued rattling of the deceased contestants' displays. No-one wanted to make the first move, certain that their opponents would be able to take advantage of whatever they did. Gradually, a dull groan arose; it was the sound of glass or stone being pushed to its breaking point and beyond, and it filled the speakeasy's antechamber, riding a painful crescendo until it became a painful and palpable force. Everyone's attentions turned to the glass cylinders, watching the unbreakable substance trying to split from itself.
With a final mineral keening, cracks rocketed across the display's surfaces; less than a second after the first split had appeared, the glass exploded outwards, coruscating halos of shards blossoming and rocketing through the air. The swarming splinters descended on Jessamine, who haughtily made as though to swat them away. Much to her surprise, the glass proved no more breakable for her than it had for Vyrm'n, and she was helpless to redirect it; waves of glittering shards fell on her, nicking her shell and sending her scuttling backwards. Neither of Vyrm'n and Frank were able to do anything productive through the swarm of glass, but Jessamine seemed to be quite trapped in any case, and was taking gradual damage with no apparent recourse.
As she was backed into a wall, Jessamine stoped her instinctual flailing; she couldn't damage the glass itself or physically swat it aside. Of course, the obvious thing to do when confronted with an implacable weapon was to break the hand holding it: she slashed, letting her essence seep out past the mere matter of her shell, and caught Gestalt's being in her claws; she ripped and tore, sending waves of fragments clattering to the floor as the spirit holding them up was bisected and rebuked.
Even for a being of Jessamine's nature, it was difficult when bound to a physical form to fight an opponent who attacked from 360 degrees, and gaining ground against Gestalt was proving problematic with her damaged shell; even as she cut its tendrils back, more arose and picked up the glass it had dropped. She could feel every time she ripped into the golem that it was taking a tremendous effort of will for the little construct to maintain its assault; more worryingly though was that every time she clawed at the spirit, she could feel something trying to pull bits of her into what felt like the Interstice. Each time she attacked, the pull was just the tiniest bit stronger; before long, she was losing tiny fractions of her essence to whatever void Gestalt was bound to.
As for Gestalt itself, the fight was a blur of overlapping realities, blinding pain, and whispered voices. It could feel itself coming closer and closer to falling back into nonsapience as the rush of sensations threatened to overtake rational thought, but it steeled itself and kept fighting. Though Jessamine's shell was clearly sustaining damage, albeit gradually, it was all in the form of rather minor cracks; it was becoming clear that Gestalt wouldn't be able to keep its sanity gathered for long enough to overwhelm her, and neither Vyrm'n nor Frank were able to do anything as long as it was keeping the proprietress pinned.
In fact, Vyrm'n had already taken to lunging for Jessamine periodically; she was no more able to penetrate the cloud of glass than she had been able to break through the displays at the beginning of the round, but in the absence of a true mind or personality to base her own around, she was filled with urges by the Speakeasy's key. Without the rational thought to make plans and take advantage of her potential allies' actions, she was reduced to simply swooping at Jessamine, every fiber of her questionable being screaming to kill, completely ignoring the intervening obstacles.
As Gestalt felt itself teetering on the brink of collapse, an idea occurred to it: as the Faceless rocketed towards Jessamine once again, Gestalt pulled itself out of an area of shards, forming an empty column between Jessamine and Vyrm'n. Jessamine looked upwards, well aware of the assault but unable to push through the glass and without time to remove enough of Gestalt to escape. The blackness slammed into the fractured centipede: time stood still for an instant as Jessamine was sundered; stars rippled and glittered in concert with the twinkling of Gestalt's impenetrable cloud of slivers and Jessamine's crumbling body.
And then reality caught up with itself and several things happened at once. There was a flash and a cacophonous roar of simultaneous words, and Vyrm'n was flung away from what remained of Jessamine; the proprietress was tossed in the opposite direction, broken body shedding glass and her blue, smoky essence spilling out into the air; Gestalt's speaker roared to life unbidden, shrieking and shrieking with an agony that the unliving should never have cause to express. Glass rained down and boxes clattered as the golem lost its grip on itself, Jessamine's sundered hull mixing with the remains of the display cases as her true self rose from the wreckage. A bluish cloud formed, hissing and baring vaporous teeth.
Jessamine was too competent and pragmatic to indulge in foolishness like a villain's monologue under normal circumstances, but the shivering, all-consuming rage she was wracked with seemed to be clouding her judgement. As she hovered and diffused, she spat disconnected words and phrases, incoherent with impotent fury. Flight wasn't a very high priority of hers in any case; it wasn't as though the assembled cretins had any way of truly damaging her, so there was no harm in letting her displeasure be known.
For some seconds, the only physical movement was Vyrm'n's uncertain circling and the writhing of Jessamine's essence. The only spiritual movement was Gestalt shakily gathering itself up and gathering itself around its physical limbs. After a time, there were a few quiet pops as Frank rolled her shoulders and flexed her newly-reformed arms; with a grin, she stretched and shot a glance at what was left of Jessamine.
"Well, sweetie, ya gotta know we can't letcha make it outta heah."
Sneering mouths formed, too full of choler and confidence to avoid the cliche. "Oh? And how do you intend to stop me?"
Frank lit up another cigarette and gestured to the pile of boxes. "Grab her, kiddo."
Gestalt rose, not bothering to bring its tools with it; it was having trouble comprehending the world around it for all that it seemed to be looking at two at once; it was having trouble following Frank's logic or thinking at all through all the exotic pain and the whispering voice of the Diarist; it was no longer even sure of its senses of self or purpose. In a word, Gestalt felt broken, and with no reason to disobey, it continued to follow Frank's orders. A coruscating wave of psychic colors washed over Jessamine's phantasmal form; anyone with the sight to see spirits would have been able to watch a writhing ball of tendrils and shapelessness thrashing around the room, the visual cacophony of Gestalt doing its damndest to subdue the implacable blue that was Jessamine.
It was clear it wouldn't be able to do so for long.
Judging by Frank's expression, though, that wouldn't particularly matter; her amused grin spread to a wicked smirk, and her right arm lanced across the room, fingers splaying then wrapping around one of the crates Gestalt had bothered to possess again. With inhuman speed, she whipped the box upward; with uncanny precision, it hurtled towards Vyrm'n. The Faceless didn't even seem aware of its approach, and made no effort to dodge.
Vyrm'n was an unimprinted Faceless now; by her very nature, she should absorb the first shred of sapience she encountered and form her being around it. But the same hand that had torn Vyrm from the Entropic shell she'd been bound to was still wrapped around the newly-blanked slate, swatting away anything that would threaten to imprint on her with a roar of words and a throbbing of space. That hand swung once again as Gestalt's box collided with Vyrm'n, screaming in a language none present consciously understood but all felt the meaning of. Reality was once again bifurcated, twin existences splitting from one another as the Diarist's power overwrote what was. Gestalt was split with them, forced to stretch between every path that deviated from the one the book insisted it stay on, consciousness and being spread thin through time and space and notion.
And Jessamine, entangled as she was in the roiling cloud of schrotgolem, was pulled between universes as well; she, however, lacked the anchoring given Gestalt by its description in the book and its hand in the reading, and as the chasm of being opened to stretch Gestalt further, she was pulled into it. There was no dramatic scream, no scrabbling to stay within reality, no invectives or curses; all there was was a flash, a brief thunder of spacetime, and then quiet. Gestalt and Vyrm'n were flung away from each other – the former to quiver in anguish and the latter to pinwheel in confusion – and Jessamine was gone, lost in the cracks between realities.
Frank, apropos of nothing, blew a smoke ring.
"I figyah that's pretty well sorted, then."
For several moments, that was all that happened; Vyrm'n was certainly in no state to move events forward, and Gestalt could do little but scream silently as it was further pulled taut across the multiverse and the Interstice. Frank herself seemed content to wait, smoking and grinning, until someone else spoke up. With force of will it never thought it had or needed, the golem slowly pulled itself together, shutting out the whisper of space and focusing on the present. Its present.
"Is… Did that…" Several more seconds passed before Gestalt could form a coherent sentence. "What just happened? Is Jessamine dead?"
Frank nodded. "Dead's a funny word when ya talk about people like ol' Jessie, but she's shuwah wishin' she was. No way she can bothah us evah again, anyway."
Part of the schrotgolem desperately wanted to know more, to ask about the whys and hows and wherefores, to dissect this whole situation and absorb it like it so often did when encountering a new tool, but… Most of it just wanted to be done. It wanted to make the Observer pay, it wanted to avenge everything that had been done to Vyrm'n and Clara and Samuel and Maxwell. It wanted the pain to stop. Rather than press the issue or pump Frank for information, it simply returned to slowly gathering up its pieces, collecting and cataloguing shards of display case and items from Paris's person.
"What now?"
Frank took a long drag before answering; before she could open her mouth, though, Vyrm'n lunged towards her. The already-leggy woman's limbs stretched and sprung, launching her across the room and nimbly righting her as Vyrm'n smashed into the wall. It seemed that following Jessamine's death or exile or disappearance, whatever it could be called, the Faceless was no longer driven by the key inside her to lash out solely against the avatrix of the Speakeasy. Their common enemy destroyed, the mindless Faceless could see no need not to tear the golem and its guide apart.
Gestalt pushed itself upright, lids once again springing open with something approaching their original alacrity; rather than spew forth bludgeons and blades, though, this time the crates were emptied of rope and fabric and chains. It was clear that it intended to ensnare Vyrm'n rather than fight her this time; Frank's expression made it clear that she didn't expect this to play out like Gestalt did, but she said nothing. The Faceless lunged again, stars streaking angrily through the dead air of the speakeasy.
A web of odds and ends wove itself as she approached, flinging itself towards her as she hurtled closer to the boxes. Tendrils of trash wrapped themselves around the bolt of darkness, and… Once again, the Diarist's work tore them apart, Gestalt dropping its net as pain shot through its being and Vyrm'n barreling away from the collision. Without the Speakeasy's key screaming into her core, Vyrm'n saw no reason to stay: there would be things to destroy elsewhere, impetuous, needling matter to pay retribution to everywhere, and it would likely not repel her at every turn the way the boxes and their contents seemed to. With no fanfare, she burst through the doors that lead to the Speakeasy proper and disappeared into the maze of tangled realities.
"Damn," muttered Frank as Gestalt once again gathered its strength and self. "I figyahd that might happen, but I was hopin' she might not bolt so fast. Ah well, that's why a gal makes a plan B, yeah?"
Every time Vyrm'n was repelled from bonding, Gestalt's speaker had begun muttering louder and louder; at this point, it was difficult to make the actual words heard over the portentous chanting, so the golem switched it back off and pulled out the notebook once again.
what then
what is plan b
"Simple. I go find the the little runnah and make shuwah she finds 'Servah alright. You do whatevah you want in the meantime, then come runnin' when I letcha know."
wouldnt it be easier for me to simply stay with you rather than necessitating message relay
"No offense, kiddo, but I know this place a lot bettah than you, and I got ways ta get around you wouldn't be able to follow. Just trust Auntie Frank, right? She ain't steered ya wrong yet."
The golem resigned itself to following more half-instructions, shuffling its contents with mild annoyance and the spectral equivalent of a migraine headache.
perhaps you are right
how will you reach me when the time comes
Frank threw up her hands. "Does it even mattah? Look, I'll let ya know, and you'll know when I do. Stuff like that, it's situational. Gotta stay flexible, and there's no time ta tell ya all the ways I might letcha know. Now I got stuff to do, and the longah you sit heyah jawin' with me, the hardah they get to do."
She turned to leave, and said one last thing over her shoulder before vaulting after Vyrm'n. "If ya really want some company, I suggest ya wait until the old broad in the cornah wakes up. Can't be that long!"
And with that, she was gone. Gestalt surveyed the room around it, glancing over the destruction and corpses that littered the floor before settling on Clara's prone form. Technically, it supposed she counted as a corpse as well, even if she was a remarkably ambulatory one. Crates glided across the floor, leaving trails in the glass and forming a semicircle around the entranced nun. Gestalt lifted her body by the clothes and propped it up against the wall, and began waiting for her to awaken and ruminating on what to do and what had happened.
It spent the next few minutes in silent contemplation of many things, but eventually focused on Lucian. The way he had used Gestalt for his own means. The way he had discarded Vyrm'n as soon as she was reset. The way he had tacitly sided with the Grandmasters as long as he could do what he wished. He was callous and manipulative, and he had gladly done the things Gestalt had been forced to do out of necessity. He was a monster.
But he was also apparently human.
He didn't seem to have the power of Jessamine, or even Frank; he was just an interloper in the Speakeasy, a willing accomplice to multiversal murder but without the power of his peers or the means to save himself. Gestalt arranged Paris's body in as close to the funerary position of its world as it could remember and reflected on the battle against Jessamine; "close to a Grandmaster", she'd been called. Well, she hadn't been able to stand up even to the four of them; what chance did a frail tinkerer like Lucian have? There was nothing Gestalt needed to be doing right now, and punishing the unfeeling hangers-on of this despicable cabal seemed to be the best thing it could do.
It shook Clara, but her head merely lolled, her channeling trance persisting. It shook more roughly, then waited a minute and shook again, but still she wouldn't wake. With recklessness born of fury and guilt, it summoned up what knowledge and Karmic powers it had left from its bonding with Samuel and reached into Clara's brain; it pushed, firing neurons and stoking glands, and the nun jerked, screaming.
The resultant seizure lasted mere moments, after which the old woman groaned and clutched her head; Gestalt pulled her upright, soothing her long-inactive limbic and adrenal systems, and began writing in midair with the glass that littered the room.
clara
i need your help
justice must be done
In contrast to the door's elegant swing and perfectly-smooth surface, the figure that stumbled out of it was decidedly unimpressive. Paris's smoky black form stood uncertainly in the atrium as his entry faded behind him, a mundane and unimpressive figure against the chaotic tableau of Frank's battle against the dwindling homunculi, Jessamine's assault on Vyrm'n, and the aftermath of Lucian's near-betrayal. A glassy head-analogue turned towards the new arrival, and Jessamine's eerie voice keened out "Excellent timing, for once. These things are threatening the order of the speakeasy itself. Help me settle everything; the boss's game is just going to have to take a backseat."
Paris took a step backwards, then another; his hand came up as though to rub his masked cheek, then hesitated as he thought better of the unconscious gesture. As Jessamine dodged another jinking lunge from Vyrm'n, the nervous glassblower shook his head slowly and backed up another few steps. The proprietress's shriek of rage was a palpable force as well as an ear-splitting noise, although Paris himself was the only one really affected by the sound. "What?! You worthless little thrall, grab those boxes or–"
Jessamine's raving was interrupted by another oddly-determined attack from the wheeling Faceless above her; Paris continued moving backwards, charred hands shivering with fear, head still shaking as though the mere act of dissent would kill him as soon as he stopped. Eventually, he backed into a wall; with nowhere else to go and no more reason to wear his mark of subservience, he slowly reached up to his rose-emblazoned hood. It smoked gently as he tugged it off, then hurtled sideways as it was unceremoniously discarded. The mask met the wall and undramatically fell to the floor, unheeded by all. Paris's lidless eyes stared out at the world for the first time in longer than he cared to remember, a terrified grin cracking papery skin and setting sores to weeping. "You broke me, Jessamine."
His courage bolstered by his erstwhile mistress's inability to retaliate while dealing with Vyrm'n, Paris took a hesitant step forward and continued "You lied to me, you tricked me, and you broke me. You know what you did, what you forced me to do, what it was like. And now I'm going to help break you." He bent down, grabbing a crustaceous chunk of flesh that had been flung across the room during Frank's fight with some homunculus or other; it burst into flame after a moment, and he hurled it towards the glassy tyrant, more for effect than out of any belief that it would be effectual. "You are going to burn."
It was at about that time that Frank turned back to face the atrium and the people in it; her limbs were still extended, her clothes and imitation skin were smeared with all manner of undefinable gore, and she'd been struck by bullets in several places, but there was no hint of commotion behind her and her face was twisted into an expression of nearly manic glee. "I knew we wasn't gonna see this finished withoutcha dead and gone, Jessie, but I nevah figyahed even ya monkey'd turn on ya. Serves ya right, you old bitch."
Jessamine was near the center of the atrium, hemmed in on all sides by hostile beings that, while clearly beneath her, made it difficult to pick any one of them off. There certainly wasn't anywhere to go that would give her a a better position; Frank very firmly guarded the exit, and there was nowhere to go through the double doors, even (or perhaps especially) for someone like Jessamine. Gestalt was huddling next to Frank; it wasn't overtly threatening, but for some reason even approaching the quivering little spirit would have made Jessamine's eyes water if she'd had any. Attacking the schrotgolem just the once had been painful enough, and it worried her that she didn't know why. Fortunately, it was still basically harmless, making no move to attack or aid the others, simply clutching its corporeal parts to itself and doing the spiritual equivalent of rocking back and forth on the balls of its feet. Paris, the little worm, was hesitantly advancing on her, but for all his rage and dramatics he'd be able to do little to her but cripple her shell a little bit; if it weren't for the dogged attention of the irascible faceless, she'd have shown him what 'broken' really meant by now.
No, the pair that were really worth worrying about were Frank and Vyrm'n; the former certainly didn't have power or abilities anywhere near on Jessamine's own level, but her knowledge could make her dangerous and, more importantly, she would probably prove an excellent distraction from the true threat that was the Entropic shard, or even reverse the roles be able to take lethal advantage of Jessamine focusing on Vyrm'n. There was a brief stalemate while everyone present waited for someone else to make a move; the lull was filled by the proprietress's voice, which hissed "Paris, you have one more chance to destroy those crates, then give me your key, and I won't make the rest of your miserable life so wretched that you'll pray that I get bored and give you to the Tormentor."
A sneer further twisted the heat-ravaged lump of flesh that Paris was forced to call a face, and he wheezed in a way that might have been a laugh. "You're too late. Threaten all you want, but Vyrm'n has the key now. Good luck getting it back." He cracked his knuckles in a way that was probably supposed to be threatening. "Not that you'll be around long enough for it to matter."
Jessamine probably would have laughed here had she been a more organic being, but as it was a palpable aura of sneeringness radiated from her glass hull. She didn't bother to respond with any kind of taunt or statement of her confidence; from her perspective, it would have been like assuring the beetle that just bumped into her that she was going to squash it. There was no point.
Instead she simply lunged, unnatural speed propelling her across the room towards Paris, whose human reaction times barely afforded him the chance to raise his hands. Fortunately for him, there were others in the room with speed and abilities that rivaled Jessamine's, at least in some respects. Anyone with perception that could follow the proprietress's movements would have similarly been able to see Vyrm'n billow and streak towards her or notice one of Frank's limbs extending and whipping upwards. Jessamine herself saw, and had predicted, Vyrm'n's unsubtle attack; she sidestepped nimbly, still on course for Paris, needly legs and glass barbs raised aggressively.
However, Jessamine hadn't been the only one with the foresight to predict how the near-mindless Vyrm'n would react; Frank's bladed arm had been whipping through the air towards the proprietress's new path before she even set herself on it. Jessamine barely had time to become aware of the attack before avoiding it too, and her less-than-elegant dodge sent her sprawling in a tangled mass of glass and smoky blue. Frank's swing continued, her other limb moving in in a pincer attack, but Jessamine righted herself faster than Frank had expected was possible and lashed out; wood and metal splinters flew through the air as the Grandmasters' servants collided, Jessamine exuding an air of smug superiority as Frank's face twisted into a hateful grimace.
This momentary tableau, however, faded almost immediately: Vyrm'n, still moving through the air with the disorganized elegance of something that had no time for trivialities like gravity, smashed into Jessamine's silicate shell. There was a very faint material thud, but it was drowned out by the psychic presence of words read in the Diarist's voice and a soundless shriek of anguish from Gestalt. Vyrm'n was rebuffed, spiraling through the air in whatever passed for confusion inside the mindless mind of a lost Entropic, while Jessamine recoiled from the touch of the abyss and the sheer force of Vyrm'n's assault. Though Jessamine was quickly losing extremities and the entirety of her hull was showing cracks and Frank had just had both of her arms rudely shorn off, Gestalt was the single being most visibly affected by the bout; despite having moved little and participated less, the little schrotgolem was quivering in terror and agony, its condition clearly exacerbated every time Vyrm'n collided with Jessamine.
As the glass chilopod that housed the proprietress stumbled backwards from the Entropic's lunge, Paris crept along the wall; while Jessamine's attention was on the wheeling blackness above and the reconstituting puppet before her, he moved as silently as he could to her side. Frank spotted his gambit and lashed out with broken wires and blades simply to keep Jessamine occupied; the proprietress sidestepped neatly, leaving Frank clawing at nothing but wood paneling, and drew herself up as though to sneer. Her taunt was cut off before it even began, though, as Paris took the opportunity to send his hand plowing through the beautiful sculpture he had so recently created.
Jessamine screamed. The floor sizzled as drops of superheated glass rained down on it. Several of Jessamine's legs clattered and tinkled as they left her body and smashed on the wood below. Glass groaned and creaked as the proprietress retaliated, flailing with her rear segments until they struck Paris and sent him flying. There were several very organic cracks and pops as Paris met the wall, and a soft thud as he reached the floor. Frank gasped.
There were a few small wisps of the blue fog that occupied Paris's creations evaporating into the air, but it was clear that Jessamine's essence wouldn't be destroyed by a mere hull breach. The now-very-unbalanced shell tottered slightly but stayed standing, fury radiating off it hotter than the glowing glass that peppered the floor around it.
"I've been careless." The words weren't bellowed or shrieked, but rather hissed out of the air like the breeze that heralded a biblically-proportioned storm. "But you troublemakers will find that I don't make the same mistake twice. And you will find..."
Nearby, Paris was clawing his way back up into a sitting position, his touch setting small fires across the wallpaper and his legs buckling as he tried to hold his weight on them. "That I've been in charge of this place since before any of you existed for a reason!"
As her sentence ended, Jessamine's voice finally did reach a furious scream. With her characteristic blinding speed, apparently unfettered by the damage her shell had accrued, she hurtled towards Paris; Vyrm'n sped towards her once again, but her rear legs came up and batted her away, sending the faceless careening into one of the Observer's display cases and eliciting the sound of two realities grinding against one another from Gestalt. The schrotgolem cried out again, actual tangible pain flooding the body it didn't have, confused impressions of two scenes overlaying themselves on one another in its mind and the droning of indecipherable words filling its perception.
Frank waffled for only fractions of fractions of seconds, wondering whether to try to intervene to save Paris or to take the opportunity to continue repairing herself, but even that microscopic slice of time was too much. Before she could raise her shattered arms, Jessamine was upon her erstwhile servant, wicked glass spikes nailing him in place; before the blood from his new wounds could even reach the floor, legs had come up and speared his heart, his lungs, and his brain. Before the light of life had faded from his lashless eyes, she twisted and sent him skidding across the floor. The lump of flesh that would only be Paris for the space of a few more gasping breaths came to a stop at the feet of Gestalt's boxes.
Gestalt dragged itself from its tortured reverie as Paris's lifeless head came to rest. It blearily took in the shattered body and the blood still dripping from Jessamine's claws; it watched as Vyrm'n gathered herself up and began circling around the dome above, a wheeling streak of night with no personality or plan; it lazily followed the shrapnel that was once part of Frank's arms as it gathered itself towards her.
Its so-recently acquired speaker crackled to life, smooth synthesized voice now emulating haggardness and barely-concealed agony. "He's dead."
Jessamine turned slowly, watching her three surviving opponents carefully and gingerly getting used to movement with so many of her legs removed. "Of course he's dead. You're all going to die. You knew you were going to die." She scoffed, advancing slowly, new gait forcing her to sway hypnotically. "Insignificance always breeds such illusions of grandeur."
Gestalt, apparently ignoring her, spoke up before her last sentence even finished. "They're all dead."
It was fairly clear it was referring to the six contestants that had passed before it: not only was there no-one else it could reasonably be referring to, but the cases surrounding their remains had begun shaking. By this point, Jessamine's attention was clearly focused on Gestalt; her forelegs were raised as though poised to strike, but she stayed near-motionless, waiting for someone else to make the first move so she could take advantage of their attack. Frank took the time to continue allowing her limbs to re-weave themselves, matter leaping from where it sat or coming into existence as she directed it. Vyrm'n spun above it all, a ball of instincts without a mind to guide it.
"This isn't right."
The scene was still again as Gestalt's borrowed voice quieted, save for the continued rattling of the deceased contestants' displays. No-one wanted to make the first move, certain that their opponents would be able to take advantage of whatever they did. Gradually, a dull groan arose; it was the sound of glass or stone being pushed to its breaking point and beyond, and it filled the speakeasy's antechamber, riding a painful crescendo until it became a painful and palpable force. Everyone's attentions turned to the glass cylinders, watching the unbreakable substance trying to split from itself.
With a final mineral keening, cracks rocketed across the display's surfaces; less than a second after the first split had appeared, the glass exploded outwards, coruscating halos of shards blossoming and rocketing through the air. The swarming splinters descended on Jessamine, who haughtily made as though to swat them away. Much to her surprise, the glass proved no more breakable for her than it had for Vyrm'n, and she was helpless to redirect it; waves of glittering shards fell on her, nicking her shell and sending her scuttling backwards. Neither of Vyrm'n and Frank were able to do anything productive through the swarm of glass, but Jessamine seemed to be quite trapped in any case, and was taking gradual damage with no apparent recourse.
As she was backed into a wall, Jessamine stoped her instinctual flailing; she couldn't damage the glass itself or physically swat it aside. Of course, the obvious thing to do when confronted with an implacable weapon was to break the hand holding it: she slashed, letting her essence seep out past the mere matter of her shell, and caught Gestalt's being in her claws; she ripped and tore, sending waves of fragments clattering to the floor as the spirit holding them up was bisected and rebuked.
Even for a being of Jessamine's nature, it was difficult when bound to a physical form to fight an opponent who attacked from 360 degrees, and gaining ground against Gestalt was proving problematic with her damaged shell; even as she cut its tendrils back, more arose and picked up the glass it had dropped. She could feel every time she ripped into the golem that it was taking a tremendous effort of will for the little construct to maintain its assault; more worryingly though was that every time she clawed at the spirit, she could feel something trying to pull bits of her into what felt like the Interstice. Each time she attacked, the pull was just the tiniest bit stronger; before long, she was losing tiny fractions of her essence to whatever void Gestalt was bound to.
As for Gestalt itself, the fight was a blur of overlapping realities, blinding pain, and whispered voices. It could feel itself coming closer and closer to falling back into nonsapience as the rush of sensations threatened to overtake rational thought, but it steeled itself and kept fighting. Though Jessamine's shell was clearly sustaining damage, albeit gradually, it was all in the form of rather minor cracks; it was becoming clear that Gestalt wouldn't be able to keep its sanity gathered for long enough to overwhelm her, and neither Vyrm'n nor Frank were able to do anything as long as it was keeping the proprietress pinned.
In fact, Vyrm'n had already taken to lunging for Jessamine periodically; she was no more able to penetrate the cloud of glass than she had been able to break through the displays at the beginning of the round, but in the absence of a true mind or personality to base her own around, she was filled with urges by the Speakeasy's key. Without the rational thought to make plans and take advantage of her potential allies' actions, she was reduced to simply swooping at Jessamine, every fiber of her questionable being screaming to kill, completely ignoring the intervening obstacles.
As Gestalt felt itself teetering on the brink of collapse, an idea occurred to it: as the Faceless rocketed towards Jessamine once again, Gestalt pulled itself out of an area of shards, forming an empty column between Jessamine and Vyrm'n. Jessamine looked upwards, well aware of the assault but unable to push through the glass and without time to remove enough of Gestalt to escape. The blackness slammed into the fractured centipede: time stood still for an instant as Jessamine was sundered; stars rippled and glittered in concert with the twinkling of Gestalt's impenetrable cloud of slivers and Jessamine's crumbling body.
And then reality caught up with itself and several things happened at once. There was a flash and a cacophonous roar of simultaneous words, and Vyrm'n was flung away from what remained of Jessamine; the proprietress was tossed in the opposite direction, broken body shedding glass and her blue, smoky essence spilling out into the air; Gestalt's speaker roared to life unbidden, shrieking and shrieking with an agony that the unliving should never have cause to express. Glass rained down and boxes clattered as the golem lost its grip on itself, Jessamine's sundered hull mixing with the remains of the display cases as her true self rose from the wreckage. A bluish cloud formed, hissing and baring vaporous teeth.
Jessamine was too competent and pragmatic to indulge in foolishness like a villain's monologue under normal circumstances, but the shivering, all-consuming rage she was wracked with seemed to be clouding her judgement. As she hovered and diffused, she spat disconnected words and phrases, incoherent with impotent fury. Flight wasn't a very high priority of hers in any case; it wasn't as though the assembled cretins had any way of truly damaging her, so there was no harm in letting her displeasure be known.
For some seconds, the only physical movement was Vyrm'n's uncertain circling and the writhing of Jessamine's essence. The only spiritual movement was Gestalt shakily gathering itself up and gathering itself around its physical limbs. After a time, there were a few quiet pops as Frank rolled her shoulders and flexed her newly-reformed arms; with a grin, she stretched and shot a glance at what was left of Jessamine.
"Well, sweetie, ya gotta know we can't letcha make it outta heah."
Sneering mouths formed, too full of choler and confidence to avoid the cliche. "Oh? And how do you intend to stop me?"
Frank lit up another cigarette and gestured to the pile of boxes. "Grab her, kiddo."
Gestalt rose, not bothering to bring its tools with it; it was having trouble comprehending the world around it for all that it seemed to be looking at two at once; it was having trouble following Frank's logic or thinking at all through all the exotic pain and the whispering voice of the Diarist; it was no longer even sure of its senses of self or purpose. In a word, Gestalt felt broken, and with no reason to disobey, it continued to follow Frank's orders. A coruscating wave of psychic colors washed over Jessamine's phantasmal form; anyone with the sight to see spirits would have been able to watch a writhing ball of tendrils and shapelessness thrashing around the room, the visual cacophony of Gestalt doing its damndest to subdue the implacable blue that was Jessamine.
It was clear it wouldn't be able to do so for long.
Judging by Frank's expression, though, that wouldn't particularly matter; her amused grin spread to a wicked smirk, and her right arm lanced across the room, fingers splaying then wrapping around one of the crates Gestalt had bothered to possess again. With inhuman speed, she whipped the box upward; with uncanny precision, it hurtled towards Vyrm'n. The Faceless didn't even seem aware of its approach, and made no effort to dodge.
Vyrm'n was an unimprinted Faceless now; by her very nature, she should absorb the first shred of sapience she encountered and form her being around it. But the same hand that had torn Vyrm from the Entropic shell she'd been bound to was still wrapped around the newly-blanked slate, swatting away anything that would threaten to imprint on her with a roar of words and a throbbing of space. That hand swung once again as Gestalt's box collided with Vyrm'n, screaming in a language none present consciously understood but all felt the meaning of. Reality was once again bifurcated, twin existences splitting from one another as the Diarist's power overwrote what was. Gestalt was split with them, forced to stretch between every path that deviated from the one the book insisted it stay on, consciousness and being spread thin through time and space and notion.
And Jessamine, entangled as she was in the roiling cloud of schrotgolem, was pulled between universes as well; she, however, lacked the anchoring given Gestalt by its description in the book and its hand in the reading, and as the chasm of being opened to stretch Gestalt further, she was pulled into it. There was no dramatic scream, no scrabbling to stay within reality, no invectives or curses; all there was was a flash, a brief thunder of spacetime, and then quiet. Gestalt and Vyrm'n were flung away from each other – the former to quiver in anguish and the latter to pinwheel in confusion – and Jessamine was gone, lost in the cracks between realities.
Frank, apropos of nothing, blew a smoke ring.
"I figyah that's pretty well sorted, then."
For several moments, that was all that happened; Vyrm'n was certainly in no state to move events forward, and Gestalt could do little but scream silently as it was further pulled taut across the multiverse and the Interstice. Frank herself seemed content to wait, smoking and grinning, until someone else spoke up. With force of will it never thought it had or needed, the golem slowly pulled itself together, shutting out the whisper of space and focusing on the present. Its present.
"Is… Did that…" Several more seconds passed before Gestalt could form a coherent sentence. "What just happened? Is Jessamine dead?"
Frank nodded. "Dead's a funny word when ya talk about people like ol' Jessie, but she's shuwah wishin' she was. No way she can bothah us evah again, anyway."
Part of the schrotgolem desperately wanted to know more, to ask about the whys and hows and wherefores, to dissect this whole situation and absorb it like it so often did when encountering a new tool, but… Most of it just wanted to be done. It wanted to make the Observer pay, it wanted to avenge everything that had been done to Vyrm'n and Clara and Samuel and Maxwell. It wanted the pain to stop. Rather than press the issue or pump Frank for information, it simply returned to slowly gathering up its pieces, collecting and cataloguing shards of display case and items from Paris's person.
"What now?"
Frank took a long drag before answering; before she could open her mouth, though, Vyrm'n lunged towards her. The already-leggy woman's limbs stretched and sprung, launching her across the room and nimbly righting her as Vyrm'n smashed into the wall. It seemed that following Jessamine's death or exile or disappearance, whatever it could be called, the Faceless was no longer driven by the key inside her to lash out solely against the avatrix of the Speakeasy. Their common enemy destroyed, the mindless Faceless could see no need not to tear the golem and its guide apart.
Gestalt pushed itself upright, lids once again springing open with something approaching their original alacrity; rather than spew forth bludgeons and blades, though, this time the crates were emptied of rope and fabric and chains. It was clear that it intended to ensnare Vyrm'n rather than fight her this time; Frank's expression made it clear that she didn't expect this to play out like Gestalt did, but she said nothing. The Faceless lunged again, stars streaking angrily through the dead air of the speakeasy.
A web of odds and ends wove itself as she approached, flinging itself towards her as she hurtled closer to the boxes. Tendrils of trash wrapped themselves around the bolt of darkness, and… Once again, the Diarist's work tore them apart, Gestalt dropping its net as pain shot through its being and Vyrm'n barreling away from the collision. Without the Speakeasy's key screaming into her core, Vyrm'n saw no reason to stay: there would be things to destroy elsewhere, impetuous, needling matter to pay retribution to everywhere, and it would likely not repel her at every turn the way the boxes and their contents seemed to. With no fanfare, she burst through the doors that lead to the Speakeasy proper and disappeared into the maze of tangled realities.
"Damn," muttered Frank as Gestalt once again gathered its strength and self. "I figyahd that might happen, but I was hopin' she might not bolt so fast. Ah well, that's why a gal makes a plan B, yeah?"
Every time Vyrm'n was repelled from bonding, Gestalt's speaker had begun muttering louder and louder; at this point, it was difficult to make the actual words heard over the portentous chanting, so the golem switched it back off and pulled out the notebook once again.
what then
what is plan b
"Simple. I go find the the little runnah and make shuwah she finds 'Servah alright. You do whatevah you want in the meantime, then come runnin' when I letcha know."
wouldnt it be easier for me to simply stay with you rather than necessitating message relay
"No offense, kiddo, but I know this place a lot bettah than you, and I got ways ta get around you wouldn't be able to follow. Just trust Auntie Frank, right? She ain't steered ya wrong yet."
The golem resigned itself to following more half-instructions, shuffling its contents with mild annoyance and the spectral equivalent of a migraine headache.
perhaps you are right
how will you reach me when the time comes
Frank threw up her hands. "Does it even mattah? Look, I'll let ya know, and you'll know when I do. Stuff like that, it's situational. Gotta stay flexible, and there's no time ta tell ya all the ways I might letcha know. Now I got stuff to do, and the longah you sit heyah jawin' with me, the hardah they get to do."
She turned to leave, and said one last thing over her shoulder before vaulting after Vyrm'n. "If ya really want some company, I suggest ya wait until the old broad in the cornah wakes up. Can't be that long!"
And with that, she was gone. Gestalt surveyed the room around it, glancing over the destruction and corpses that littered the floor before settling on Clara's prone form. Technically, it supposed she counted as a corpse as well, even if she was a remarkably ambulatory one. Crates glided across the floor, leaving trails in the glass and forming a semicircle around the entranced nun. Gestalt lifted her body by the clothes and propped it up against the wall, and began waiting for her to awaken and ruminating on what to do and what had happened.
It spent the next few minutes in silent contemplation of many things, but eventually focused on Lucian. The way he had used Gestalt for his own means. The way he had discarded Vyrm'n as soon as she was reset. The way he had tacitly sided with the Grandmasters as long as he could do what he wished. He was callous and manipulative, and he had gladly done the things Gestalt had been forced to do out of necessity. He was a monster.
But he was also apparently human.
He didn't seem to have the power of Jessamine, or even Frank; he was just an interloper in the Speakeasy, a willing accomplice to multiversal murder but without the power of his peers or the means to save himself. Gestalt arranged Paris's body in as close to the funerary position of its world as it could remember and reflected on the battle against Jessamine; "close to a Grandmaster", she'd been called. Well, she hadn't been able to stand up even to the four of them; what chance did a frail tinkerer like Lucian have? There was nothing Gestalt needed to be doing right now, and punishing the unfeeling hangers-on of this despicable cabal seemed to be the best thing it could do.
It shook Clara, but her head merely lolled, her channeling trance persisting. It shook more roughly, then waited a minute and shook again, but still she wouldn't wake. With recklessness born of fury and guilt, it summoned up what knowledge and Karmic powers it had left from its bonding with Samuel and reached into Clara's brain; it pushed, firing neurons and stoking glands, and the nun jerked, screaming.
The resultant seizure lasted mere moments, after which the old woman groaned and clutched her head; Gestalt pulled her upright, soothing her long-inactive limbic and adrenal systems, and began writing in midair with the glass that littered the room.
clara
i need your help
justice must be done