A Summoning From Hell // Tangle Trio 2.0 vs Balor

Life is fragile, too fucking fragile, especially here. They are infants at the mercy of the game makers, and quite frankly, Glamour Kinkade and Dom Copperview make for very bad parents.

The lit candle flickers in the gentle breeze as the sun sets, and he collapses in the sand. Calloused fingers stroke a thin strip of paper over and over as his gaze slides to the sky, tendrils of loose blood tinging the atmosphere in clouds high above like a twisted mobile. He turns his gaze to the sea, ever swaying, rocking apart the velvety sand of the beach.

He saw the hovercraft come, but he keeps it secret from Ruth and Jeq, watched tenticles from a bald jellyfish dip into the ocean and sweep them up as though they were nothing but nourishment for its convoluted organs. Ebony metal pushes against his shoulder, pale fabric ripped from the wolves another lifetime ago. The night of silence for him begins the moment the sun dips beyond the horizon, crimson fading away to pale navy, stars winking suspended in space.

It was going to happen one way or another.

He tells himself this over a thousand times.

Be thankful it was quick, and it wasn't you.

Septys wonders if the capitolites expect him to stand and brace himself against the sea and rip out his own vocal chords to scream- "Did you kill Taurus Hawk?"

They will be extremely disappointed if so.

Septys feels nothing but a ragged, empty ache in the pit of his stomach. After the initial shock of losing not one, but two companions, the weight seems actually lifted from his shoulders. He knew it would happen, the moment he stepped up for Mohs.

The deaths of Taurus Hawk and Neptune Leifde were not his fault and for that he is thankful.

I guess the makers have their favorite children after all.



When morning strikes, he still sits, candle flickering at his hip as his fingers stroke a bloodied silver key- just a few days more, and he'd get to go home. For the first time in an eternity, he brightens at the prospect of setting eyes on Quadrys. A familiar coolness sweeps across his fingertips, his dark gaze staring down at the thing nestled against the crook of his arm. A smile twitches its way onto his face, stroking the mist creature with his thumb.

"Welcome back!" he murmurs, lifting the animal, which lifts of its own accord and snakes through the air, wrapping around his neck, draping its wings across the dark ebony of his cloak. He can't quite recall when the animal left, but he is more than thankful to have his strange, jellyfishdragon back.

He replaces the key in his shirt, body lifting up easily off the ground with the extra comfort from his creature like a cool scarf around his neck.

"Hey." he croaks to the females, trailing the scythe behind him. It's too large to even think about putting in his bag, and he'd like to have the thing right at his side for times like this- his eyes seem brighter, lightened by the prospect of facing another actual enemy, someone to blame instead of himself.

"Oh." he grumbles, gaze flickering to movement ahead, squinting at the folded wings.

"...Oh."

Ruth sprints ahead before he can say another word and he sure as hell can't let her suffer on her own. "Fuck- Ruth wait!" The dragon around his neck lifts its frills and offers a hiss, claws gripping into the dark cloak, its eyes locked on the thing.

He scurries after her, but she's clearly not fucking around with this looming creature, and his heart rises in his throat- a test.

A fucking test.

Fine.

Lets go.

Slender hands grip the metal pole of his scythe as blood pours from above, fire raining and scraping past his cheek. He grits his teeth and moves behind the creature, dodging below outstretched wings, his gaze locked on a fragile joint hanging so gently a few feet above his head- her neck.

He lingers for a moment, thankful for the sizzles of rain that pound against the top of his skull, cooling the screaming wounds. Jaws clam shut as his hnds pull down, the tip of his scythe scraping against her skull.

He smirks, pulling himself back to her side while her gaze shifts to another- "RUTH! Be careful!"

He curses loudly as the feeling of knives rake against his chest, but it's shalow- no worse than if he'd scraped his arm on a tree. Dark eyes hover, matching the Balor's singular hate-filled stare, and Septys grits his jaws.

Jeq and Ruth hold their own well, both hacking and choping away at the creature with every fiber of their being, but it isn't enough- it isn't enough. Horrified visions of the two females roasting under her flame-riddled gaze flicker across his conciousness, along with the dull thought that one of them made these things, these demons from their imaginations.

It is worse than the woves, her unsettling stare looming above them, but even she is not untouchable to his swinging glaive.