The Kethencian College of Magic RP (Part 3)

[Philote]

An idea dawns on Zauber as he watches Asoka's fighting prowess. He swings his arms and suddenly the helmet is flying through the air and straight into Asoka's cloud of petals.

"Asoka! Pierce the helmet!" he screams, confident that Asoka's speed could outmatch that of Gorn's in obtaining the helmet.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Billy leaps, throwing himself over the pounce and letting the spider fly under him. He twists in midair, landing on the back of one of them. His mana, again a torrent of wind pouring from his body, swirled around his hand as he reached down and grabbed the back of the spider. But his hand didn't stop at the hairy brown shell of the creature, instead plunging in as though the creature were made of mud. As he withdrew his hand, the room was filled with a white light as Billy wrenched and tugged and pulled, drawing the light further and further out. With one last tug the light was pulled free with the spider falling down onto the ground, its functions simply ceasing.

Billy stared at the white fire in his hand, shining with light and warmth. The resemblance to the fires shown to him by Hickory Nix was unmistakable. James had true talent. But there was no time to admire the shining life in his hand at the moment, even if he particularly wanted to at the moment. Instead he threw it at Samantha.

The light entered her, and as it did her energy reserves seemed to double all on their own. "Miss Oddack?" Billy asked, assuming a crouched position on the spider. "Take your Housemates and escape from here. Try the Destruction Wing,they were a great help in nearly this exact situation. So was this." He reaches into his cloak pocket and tosses her a heavy tome. "I'll try to clear your path, but if any of these creatures get in your way give them a solid whack."

He took the hand with which he had throw her the book and placed it on the spiders back, saying his prayer to the deceased enemy. Mana swirled out of him, enveloping the spider before entering it through the joint in it's carapace. The spider's eyes were lit with an unnatural light as it stood with a renewed purpose, Billy standing on it's back. "Please, Leave everything to me."

He cast one last look at James, and regretfully shook his head. "GO!!!" he shouted, the Spider throwing itself at the boy while he jumped off to deal with any siders that tried to go for Samantha with his Spirit Webbing.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

As The Creature recoiled from the dreary, quicker-advancing cloud, Wulf saw his chance. A chance he likely wouldn't soon get again.

He reared his arms back above his head, called rubbed his hands together to build static, and put forth one hand after the other, launching a basketball-sized volley from each. And as those flew, he hurried to generate more.

If, perhaps, he could gain some momentum, then maybe his lack of fighting skill wouldn't mean much.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

James stepped back as the large spider flung itself at him, stopping suddenly as he backed into the stone walls. He had nowhere to go, nowhere to escape to as the traitorous spider closed in.

He smiled.

His hands moved almost inhumanely fast to the wall at his back, palms smacking against the rough stone. A faint pulse, like a ripple in water washed across the wall’s face, fading almost instantly. As the spider finished its trajectory and closed in on James, two massive stone claws erupted from the wall and snatched the spider from the air, holding it mere feet from James. With a deep rumble the claws lurched forward, pulling a massive stone shell with them as the wall shrunk and warped to form the new creature.  As the wall finally melted away, the ceiling cracked and groaned from the lack of support and rained dust upon the newly formed brick crab that trashed about with the spider.

“Please Billy…I didn’t make that deal for nothing! Now please, just stand down and let the Red Eyes rise. It’ll be easier that way.”

[Marvelous Miscreant]

The beast continues to recoil from the blasts, screeching painfully. Without warning, it quickly ducks to the side and spews a foul, steaming liquid from its maw.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

"Rikai!"

Asoka quickly spun around and formed the mental image of her flames forming into a point to strike the pentacle in the helmet as she swung the arm holding Murasaki towards Zauber.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Gorn staggered as the flames struck his helm and the crystal's cracks began to lengthen. In one violent movement, Gorn flung his arms out and thick flames erupted from every crevice and crack in his armor. An inhuman screech of rage and pain shattered the air and Gorn slammed his feet into the ground, bracing himself. He unfiltered fury he charged toward his Helm, the ground cracking and splintering beneath his heavy, powerful steps.

[Philote]

Zauber slams his palms on the ground and a shield wall rises up in front of Gorn's rampaging path with more ready to rise up behind it as Gorn inevitably charges through the first. Hopefully it would be enough to stall the beast as Asoka finished the creature.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"The implication that it's possible for one person to slow it down." Billy replied, throwing out webbing at two spiders still left in the room. With a deft yank the twos very life force was was ripped from they, drawn in to the necromancers palm by his swirling mana. "If I was going to sell my soul and give up on living I think I' pick a more powerful master."

He took the power in his hand and threw it at the weakened ceiling.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Gorn Slammed into the wall, cracking it and sending a quake of rumbling earth outwards in every direction. He bellowed angrily at the barricade, all trace of intelligence gone as he acted on base instinct alone. Raising his two massive fist, he began to beat upon the shield, cracking it further with each thunderous blow. It would be mere moments before he was upon Asoka once more.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Billy's blast struck the weakened ceiling, momentarily heaving it upwards, before it fell back again, loosened by the blow, it collapsed completely raining stone and rubble upon Billy, James and the Creatures.

James yelped and leaped away from the avalanche of ceiling debris. He rolled awkwardly out into the hall outside the Divination wing as a cloud of dust exploded out from the collapsed ceiling.

James stood up, coughing from the dust and called weakly into the wreckage.

"You will come to understand why I did all this Billy...I only hope then you can forgive me..."

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"I'm not interested in your justifications." Billy's voice called out from the dust. But it was strange, echoey, hollow, and as though it were coming from somewhere very far away. "I would very much like to know, however, if you could ever forgive yourself."

There was a swirl of mana in the air as an ethereal wind blew out reveling Billy, completely unharmed, standing on a pile of rubble. Mana was whirling around his right hand as he slowly walked, soundlessly, toward James. "The restless dead swirl constantly around us." He intoned. "Their heartful voices cry out for justice."

And it was so, as whispers began to fill the room. Whispers from an age old past, telling of lives cut short and goals never met. The wind coming off of Billy was now very cold and seemed to blow right through you, right past your meat and bones and into your very core. And all the while boy continued toward James.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

"Don't you see? I had to...I would never have survived this attack, let alone the Red Eye's resurrection. It was my only chance for life. You have to believe me!"

James staggered backwards, edging away fearfully from Billy as he approached. Lashing out, he managed to conjure a few tiny scurrying creatures from the rubble, but they did little more than tug harmlessly at Billy's clothing.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

"AAUGH!" comes Wulf's outcry, as he shuts his eyes and throws up his hands, bracing for the worst.

An instant later, he hears a nasty wet splat, followed by electricity crackling. Yet, he feels nothing. Opening his eyes slowly, he can see the wet, sloppy splat plastered across a clear bluish-purple panel, about the size of a full-body mirror, coursing with electricity.

Is that coming from me? The thought shot to mind, and in short order, the electrical barrier dissolved, leaving the mucilaginous goo to fall to the ground, with a sickening, gurgling hiss. He looked down...

It couldn't be. Was that grody stuff eating away at the floor?

Wulf scrambled backward, his hand fumbling behind him for his ride. Where was it? Where had it gone? It wasn't--!

Ah, there it was. It coalesced into something semi-solid around his hand, and whisked him up into the air, before the Creature could catch up and pull him back down. He rose ten, fifteen, twenty-five feet, and from his new vantage point, as more electricity built in his hands, made a final decision. He couldn't give this monster room to keep attacking.

He cocked back, and eyed the leering Creature with menace. His will was not the strongest, but it tipped just over the threshold needed to form the electrical attack into a familiar shape. Indeed, now was as good a time as any to try out Zeus' good old fashioned thunderbolt. People back where he was from used to toss javelins for fun, in their spare time. Now it was time to show this foul, rot-smelling muck-beast how he had gotten to be among the best.

A moment's aim, just as the monster seemed also to be aiming to spit yet more sludge...

And before the Creature could utter a breath of spittle, Wulf gripped the bolt, gave a thunderous war cry, in the name of any and all sky gods, and let fly. Recoiling in pain from the bolt's hateful sting, Wulf turned over his throwing hand, and gasped. There, clear as day, was a slash, like from a blade...

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

With all her strength, Asoka swung Murasaki at Gorn's helmet once more.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

There was a blinding flash of light, followed by a horrendous piercing screech as the creature wailed in pain. The stench of charred flesh and bile wafted through the air on putrid smoke. The creature reared back, flailing as it tried to flee from the pain, ultimately collapsing backwards with a dull thud. It did not move after that, and a growing puddle of green bile-like fluid slowly pooled around it's corpse.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

The crack of metal on crystal echoed through the air as time seemed to stop momentarily. Everything grew silent as the shattered crystal pulsed weakly, as if drawing it's final breath. The tinkle of the shattered crystal on the round brought the world rushing back into motion.

All at once, Gorn's body erupted into a geyser of smoke, shattered metal and flaming debris. It burst upwards in a stream drowning out the world with Gorn's deafening screams of pain. As suddenly as it began, it stopped and all that was left was the shadow of the man Gorn used to be.

Floating there, where he had stood. A young man, relieved that his nightmare was over. He mouthed a silent thank you and faded into nothingness.

Gorn was dead.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Asoka stood up slowly, shaking visibily before bursting out in relieved laughter.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Not even that. Their hands passed through the hem of Billy's cloak, dispersing it in a black smokish substance that rushed back into shape. At James plea the boy paused mid stride, the whispers and the wind quieting. There was a long moment of silence.

Then Billy jerked, quick and unnaturally, and suddenly he was there. Face inches from James own. "That's it!?" he screamed, and his head jerked and shook for a spit second, his features moving in a blur, before quickly returning to normal. "You wouldn't have lived?" he continued, but his words and the movement of his mouth didn't seem to synch up. All of a sudden the wind was blowing again, harder and colder than before. The whispers returned as well, loader and fiercer and accusatory. "You sell out your friends, you trade the lives of everyone in this place for your own!?"

Billy's whole body shook at that, limbs bending in impossible directions for a fraction of a second. He brought his hand, the one with the swirling vortex of mana, and like a viper poked him in the temple with it.

-------
He was a class head, struggling, fighting for his life against things that he had no obligation to, cruel awful things that laughed at his attempts and reveled in the slaughter. His last thought as he lie bleeding on the floor was of his younger siblings.
--------

The memory played out in the James mind, every bit of pain and regret thrust suddenly into his head as though he had lived it.

"Don't tell me you couldn't have left!" At this, Billy's face actually spilts into two separate faces, each pushing a different way before again reverting. Such jerks and twitches were coming faster now as the ethereal wind only seemed to grow stronger. "Don't tell me, because then you'd be selling out your home! Your family! Your country!"

Billy struck him again.

--------
He's a girl, on her way home. He senses movement before he see's it, but by that point there's nothing he can do. There's a bloom of pain in his chest, and he looks down to see a claw sticking out of it. The claw jerks and he can feel his life being drained away, sapped to nothing. He tries to cry out but there's no one around. He dies there, alone save for the company of the creature. The last thing he sees are its red eyes before everything goes black.
--------

"You traitor! You scum!" Billy grabs him by the collar and there's another of those twitches. James finds himself thrown through the air against the back wall. He only rests for a instant before Billy is there again, dragging him to his feet. "You will tell me everything you know, Apostle," James feels a gripping cold around his very soul, and when he looks down he finds Billy's arm deep inside his chest, "or dying will be the least fearful thing that happens to you this day! Your plans! The reason you chose today! Everything you know about your fellows!  And where is that thing I showed you through Sara's eyes!?"

[Marvelous Miscreant]

James stared into Billy's eyes and saw no shred of the innocent child he'd assumed him to be. Fear paralyzed his body and caused his mind to race.  He sang like a bird.

"Daramos is the mastermind. He's planned all this from the beginning. My attack, Kyrse's rampage, even the attacks on the students outside the grounds. It's all part of his design. He didn't tell me all the details. I think he was trying to remove as many mages from the grounds as possible first so our attack tonight would be easier. The deaths in the town were all some part of the Red Eye's resurrection as far as I could figure. They chose tonight because it's the anniversary...the same night he was sealed away centuries ago. The other apostles were supposed to run interference and provide a distraction. Daramos and the others are down in the chamber now, trying to free The Red Eyes. Daramos wanted to oversee it himself. Kyrse is running defense for the ritual and the Apostle your looking for will be there too. He's insanely powerful. Way more than any of the others.And that's all I know, I swear!!!!"