The Beowulf to her tribe's Grendel

[3kul]

(( DP is here! Don't choke, don't choke, don't choke...))

HollowEyes eats a cake-flavoured banna.

((damn... ok, now back to being serious and pretending that DP isn't watching ))

Little Sister struggled, unable to move her hair in any helpful way. The Pangolin Fiend's tongue covered her from head to toe, and she really couldn't see a way out of it. Opening her mouth slightly, her tongue slipped out and bit into the Fiend's tongue. Even though she couldn't absorb it, she could try to eat it until it disappeared.

HollowEyes too was struggling - he was able to deflect each scale as Mough threw it by shooting ink from his mouth at different angles, but he couldn't attack her at the same time. He could either keep doing this until she ran out of scales, or change strategies. Given that she could have any number of the sharp platelets in her, he opted for the second choice.

He dove to one side, deflecting another scale with an ink blob as he did so. He whipped out a Liquid Flame charm and hurled it towards the ground near Mough's feet, but at the same time a scale hit him in the leg. It hadn't done too much damage, but it certainly was painful, and would no doubt cause him grief if he tried to put too much weight on it.

[Shaon]

The pangolin fiend grimaced, but continued to have a good grip around the paraseech. The other continued to call for the smaller one in Fiendese, whom was apparently lost.

Mough's hearing was muted, and didn't hear the paper unlike she usually did. Her only hint was the burning sensation by her feet.

She looked down, and immediately jumped up, rolling into a compact, scaled ball, spinning in Holloweye's direction.

[3kul]

((If they're covering LS' hair, and consequently her head, how would a different pangolin fiend be able to try pulling her tongue away? I was under the impression that she was biting from the inside... I'll post later today btw))

[Shaon]

((Alright, edited to make more sense. ))

[3kul]

It was no good - the Parasitian ability to eat relied on the fact that the opponent had a proper physical form, which the Pangolin Fiend did not.

There wasn't much Little Sister could do for now, the combination of the long tongue and it's sticky texture seemed to be quite effective against her - when she got back to the Cave she'd have to sort something out to fix that.

~Oi, slow brother, I'm currently taking on all these Fiends, what's taking you so long to beat a spoilt brat?~

HollowEyes didn't reply, as he needed to focus on the current battle. Perhaps to Mough, his current way of using charms was somewhat erratic and poorly thought out, but he was really trying to figure out her abilities. The damage that he'd done so far was simply a bonus on top of that.

But this rolling ability of hers... it was hard to place. It could either be a technique or a spirit power, or maybe both? There wasn't much time to think about that since she was currently hurtling towards him though, so he leaned over to the side, spinning his arm blades to roll sideways out of harm's way.

Quickly standing up once more, he tapped a reflective water charm to his head. Seconds later, the field was surrounding with identical copies of HollowEyes, made from the moisture in the atmosphere.

Making sure to keep his distance from the liquid flame charm, which was still spouting fire, he waited to see how Mough would react to this.

[Shaon]

There was a low grunt. The smaller one had been killed by something.

Mough could not see in this form- instead her spirit had given her a rudimentary ability to sense living things. As so, she did not 'see' the copies, still trying to go after HollowEyes.

[3kul]

'Interesting' HollowEyes thought to himself as Mough noticably changed direction to continue towards him.

If it was a specialist technique, she would have only been able to see HollowEyes and the many clones, and thus wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them, or seen none of them and kept going the way she was going. Yet instead she appeared to target him specifically, confirming that this was indeed a spiritually gained ability. Odds were she could sense him, but not see him - kind of like one of his Third Eye's abilities, and he could use this to his advantage.

'An awful lot of abilities for just one disciple...' he continued to think as he darted backwards to avoid getting run over, whilst at the same time making sure that she was definately following him. 'Pity for her she doesn't know how to use them properly, now it's all over'.

He leapt up into the air, and the moment Mough was directly below him, he slapped a beetle charm onto his horn. The upgraded charm kicked in straight away, and his horn suddenly exploded in side, width and density. ((not literally of course, most charm activation is silent, unless you can hear bones and stuff moving around or growing :p))

In mere seconds he would come down on Mough like a ton of bricks, and there wasn't all that much she could do about it if she couldn't see what he was doing. This was a bit of a gamble, as if he was wrong, he'd be wide open for an attack, but he was almost certain that he wasn't.

[Shaon]

As would be expected, Mough continued to attempt to smash into HollowEyes.

[3kul]

((EDIT: Ok, I'm assuming that you're still spinning around beneath him, unable to tell that he's used the beetle charm and unable to roll directly upwards))

HollowEyes hit Mough dead-on target, and though she struggled against him, her spinning was being forced to gradually slow down due to the immense weight of his spiritually enhanced horn. All HollowEyes had to do was wait, and he'd probably crush her like this.

He shouted over the horrible grinding sound that Mough was making against his horn. "Give up under my terms, or I won't get off you, and you will be crushed the moment you stop spinning."

[Shaon]

If you could see her face, she was grinning.

"Kill the Parasitian! She's a sacrifice!"

She yelled, loud enough to be heard quite well.


The pangolin fiends, hearing this, nodded at eachother. The pangolin binding Little Sister began tightening its tongue's grip, attempting to squeeze the life out of her.

[3kul]

(( That's a bit of a dirty trick Shaon... you know what they say though, an eye for an eye ))

"That's the way you want to play it, hm?" Mough's stubborness was almost infuriating, and there wasn't anything HollowEyes could do without letting her go... HollowEyes quickly flicked out his Locust Fiend charm. The field was suddenly surrounded with hundreds of Locust Fiends, and HollowEyes spoke not to them, but into the charm itself.

"I understand that I'm down on my sacrifices, so please accept this girl as payment." The charm flew across and attached itself to a random Locust Fiend, which began to speak. "Consider this offer accepted, however, she is only enough to pay for half of your sacrificial debt. Keep in mind that we will require another sacrifice before you can use us in combat again."

HollowEyes pressed down on Mough hard to ensure that she stopped spinning, before removing the beetle charm from his horn and leaping off of her. "I am most appreciative of your generosity. Please return to your realm once you have consumed the girl, I will take care of the rest by myself." As HollowEyes and his water clones ((no, I didn't forget about them)) ran to help Little Sister, the Fiends began to quickly move in towards Mough, coming at her from every angle.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Little Sister felt the tongue tightening on her, and realized what was happening. Unfortunately for her, there wasn't all that much she could do - she couldn't move her hair at all, and her tongue seemed to have no effect. ~Brother, what exactly is taking you so long to get here?~ She inquired in an aggressive tone, despite her current situation.

As if in reply, several water clones hurled themselves towards the tongue of the Pangolin Fiend that was tightening it's grip on Little Sister.

((They won't actually make much of an impact, although they'll probably either distract the Pangolin Fiend, or possibly dilute the sticky solution that coats it's tongue.))

[Shaon]

Sensing Holloweyes moving away, she instinctively shot off several scales, which quickly morphed into pangolin fiends.

She rolled out of the ball, and chased after HollowEyes, leaving the pangolins to fend off the locusts.

The largest pangolin grunted, moving so that his plate-covered body was protecting their hostage.

The pangolin, seeing the clones out of the corner of its eye, merely tightened his grip even faster.

[3kul]

The Locust Fiends totally ignored the Pangolin Fiends that Mough had summoned, and swarmed around Mough herself - those she had run through to follow HollowEyes were already biting at her, and a few hundred were very close behind.

Several of the water clones hit the largest Pangolin Fiend, merely splashing all over it, but many others leapt over or ran around it, still aiming to smash themselves into the tongue of the Fiend that had Little Sister. HollowEyes re-applied fox charms to his hands as he got closer, ready to slice at the nearest Pangolin Fiend he could reach to help Little Sister escape.

Little Sister meanwhile was feeling the Pangolin Fiend's grip tighten, and she began to alter the solidity of her body structure - it would help her last a little longer against the increasing pressure, but there was a limit to how 'squishy' she could make herself, and it'd be pretty bad for her if she didn't get out soon.

[Shaon]

Not paying attention to the locusts surrounding her, Mough tripped on one and fell.

Seeing their only deciple swarmed by locusts, the pangolin fiend quickly retracted Little Sister into his mouth, somehow manuvering its tongue so she would go down head first. Slowly, it lightened the grip so she would go down without it worrying that its tongue would go down too, and began to swallow her alive.

[3kul]

The Locust Fiends dove on Mough the second she went down, and whilst some tried to start eating, others fought amongst each other for the right to eat her. The Pangolin Fiends that Mough had summoned here were trying to get through to their Medium, but with little success, as the sheer number of the Locust Fiends prevented them from getting through.

Little Sister grinned as the tongue's grip around her lightened a little bit, and she was able to move around once more, even if this movement was only slight. Sharpening hundreds of individual strands of hair, she began to shred up the insides of the Pangolin Fiend, and was gradually slicing her way out. ((The effect is kind of like a large amount of scalpels cutting up the Pangolin from the inside))

HollowEyes meanwhile leapt above the head of the largest Pangolin Fiend, aiming to slice through it's head as he did so, drawing closer to the Fiend that had just swallowed Little Sister. The water clones had managed to collide with the Pangolin Fiend holding Little Sister, but only once it was too late, and all they did was make the Fiend slightly damper than it had been before. To help distract it, more and more clones began to crash into it one after the other. ((They won't actually do much, it's like being splashed in the face with water... a lot))